Going to the Serpentine Gallery to see the Alex Katz exhibition was most definitely worth it!!
Summer Houses
Queen Caroline’s Temple built by the landscape architect William Kent has inspired four beautiful summer houses.
An amazing design by the American/German architectural practice Barkow Leibinger
A breathtaking structure by the Nigerian architect, urbanist and creative researcher Kunle Adeyemi
A brilliant design by British architect Asif Khan
An absolutely gorgeous design by Hungarian-born French architect Yona Friedman
Celebrating illustration…(and Quentin Blake)
The House of Illustration at Granary Square was well worth the visit!!!
The exhibition on show is A New Childhood – picture books from Soviet Russia, and it really is an eye opener.
It is hard to put stuff into words when you are overwhelmed…all I can say right now is that I want to takes classes in lithography. I am intrigued by this process…(on a need to know basis). Just seeing so many amazing lithographs has got me gagging for more…how are lithographs created? What is stone lithography? Is that the method the illustrators in Soviet Russia used? What is machine lithography?
Oh…and Quentin Blake!!!…what an inspiration!!! I have nothing to say apart from the fact that for anyone who loves illustration, the House of Illustration, 2 Granary Square, Kings Cross, N1C 4BH is a ‘must visit’.
Even the gift shop is amazeballs…gobsmackingly so! Vintage illustrated books, Neil Gaiman books, Rudyard Kipling books, a Beatrix Potter book illustrated by Quentin Blake, so many books by brilliant illustrators.
Turps…
I am in love with the smell of oils…all of a sudden painting is not such a chore. I basically had no idea how to get myself reinvigorated… Then I just thought why not put another layer of paint over acrylics? So now I know what had put me off this painting (it wasn’t the (sickly) sweet smiles)…it was basically the fact that acrylic dries so fast and I do not want to be rushed off my feet whilst painting…as well as the fact that (really going all out to state facts today😊)…made a blunder when sketching. So I’m going to take my time and work into the painting with oils and voila… I’m happy and really enjoying this now.
Oil paint really has a sting in its tail… because as buttery as it is … (jeez) the smell of turps…it is too much. I definitely have a love hate relationship with oils because I loooove painting with oils but I hate cleaning my brushes….and I need to clean my brushes.
Working in oils
I found a brilliant way to keep me on track… Basically painting oils over acrylics makes it very interesting. The last time I used my oils must be about four years ago. So now rather than be terribly bored with the painting I seem to have a new lease of life (as you may).
Screen printing
Stumped (but ploughing through)
The whole experience of returning to a painting I had abandoned was not as bad as I thought it would be. I kinda got stumped and painting these portraits became a choir…no worse it was like pulling teeth…just did not want to do it…had reached some kind of impasse.
But going away and giving painting a wide berth kinda renewed my interest in these portraits so I’ll do my best to complete the painting tomorrow…(hopefully)
