Day Two: sketch challenge

Posted on March 12, 2020 by viviennelingard

ink pen, aquarelle, graphite

Day two of my sketch 100 people challenge proved rather amusing. I set off walking swinging my art bag, after doing a quick pen sketch (above) from a photo. I was keen as mustard to get going. I had hoped to sketch a friend, but she wasn’t home. Okay; next on the plan was to visit the ferry building – always crowds of people there. Good idea, except the ferry had just departed. No commuters in sight. Right, there were a few visitors hanging about outside, so I pulled out my sketch pad and just managed to get one man in before he moved off. Oh, good, two people at the bus stop. Better than nothing I thought. Continue reading →

What did I do this for?

Posted on March 11, 2020 by viviennelingard

water-soluble graphite, aquarelle pencils, pen

I decided last week to take up the challenge of sketching 100 people in a week. Day one was Monday. It is now Tuesday, and I decided that I would write about this experience as I go. I first saw the challenge advertised on Suhita Shirodkar’s site and knew that she and many other sketchers had taken up the #oneweek100people# challenge a few times in the past. I thought ‘well, why not give it a go’. It would make me work fast, not allow me to get bogged down with too much detail, so I joined up to do this crazy thing. Continue reading →

Gaining perspective

Posted on March 5, 2020 by viviennelingard

Jetty. Pen, soluble graphite, watercolour

Last week in art class we did an exercise on one point perspective. We were to practice the rudiments of eye-level-line / horizon line, and the point to which other lines travel. In short, perspective drawing. The word perspective may intimidate new sketchers. But perspective is really just a word which suggests that there are different ways of looking. And as artists, that is the most important thing we can learn.

Continue reading →

More about Frida

Posted on February 20, 2020 by viviennelingard

Frida Kahlo, 1938/39 by Nickolas Muray

btr This exquisite photograph comes from a book I’ve owned since 2000. Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, by Isabel Alcántara and Sandra Egnolff.

Even before I was gifted this book I had read much about Frida, and greatly admired the Mexican artist and her work. Her story is one of triumph over tragedy. Or maybe that should read ‘triumph through tragedy’, for Frida may not have become a painter if she hadn’t suffered a dreadful accident at the age of eighteen, which left her bedridden for long periods of time. Continue reading →

Alongside the writing …

Posted on February 13, 2020 by viviennelingard

My Studio

In the run up to the start of my travel-sketching class, I have been trying to complete a sketch a day. Drawing daily used to be effortless, but now, I seem to need more motivation to get started. I have managed to get some sketches done and thought I’d show that I can sometimes walk the talk. As I have a very nice room, set up for both writing and art, I thought I’d take objects I like and sketch them at the worktable in there. Continue reading →

It looks like art is on the agenda

Posted on January 3, 2020 by viviennelingard

smartcapture

Art appears to be on my agenda this year, thanks in the main to Tony McNeight who runs sketch groups locally. In the past I have dipped in and out of these classes when time allows and he is amenable to my dropping in. The watercolour and pencil sketch above was done, when I joined a Saturday class at the local Ngataringa Community Gardens for a sketch session and Christmas wind-up. I made an early New Years’ pledge that day to join his classes for a term. I start mid-February. My intentions to sketch regularly did not reach the mark in 2019. Let’s hope I do better in 2020.

For the record, I am on track with my writing, and am pleased about completing my most hefty resolution from last year. Apart from seeing the book come into being, the other resolutions for this year are to finish as many unfinished projects as I can. I am always impressed by the work I see others on-line achieve; so please keep blogging about your art, travel and writing, as you all give me inspiration.

Happy New Year.

Feeling Lucky

Posted on December 5, 2019 by viviennelingard

rhdr

It is two years since we moved to our apartment in Devonport, a village at the end of a peninsular across from Auckland, where ferries, tankers, cruise ships and yachts fill the watery divide. It is a moving spectacle. Daily, I look out at the scene thinking how lucky I am to be living here. I am also lucky to have met the people I have since arriving. On Sunday 1st December we held an early Christmas party, as is our custom, and invited many of them to our home, plus others we have known a long time. Continue reading →

Passing it forward

Posted on November 25, 2019 by viviennelingard

As Christmas approaches, I attend to jobs that need finishing in order for me to complete my gift-giving. My sewing machine had long needed a service; it’s almost as old as me. But even old things can still be good (yeah!), and my machine is a good example. What stories it could tell… from sewing baby clothes to teenagers’ dresses, to shorts and shirts for my son, until he learned to sew on my machine and made baggy shorts for himself, and covers for his surfboard. Continue reading →

When life gets too busy, just sketch

Posted on November 18, 2019 by viviennelingard

My watercolour paintbox

The past weeks have seen various family members come and go, each group staying a few days, making for a very busy time. This has meant, however, my ideas for new posts have been like jelly waiting to set. That was, until yesterday, when I was invited to join another of Tony McNeight’s sketching classes, the subject, linking typography with watercolour sketches. He asked me to bring something to sketch which held a special meaning. Continue reading →

A process indeed

Posted on October 3, 2019 by viviennelingard

pencil self portrait

A few months back I did a pencil portrait of myself, and was pretty pleased with the results. I wrote a blog about that process at the time. More recently, while in London, I visited the Portrait Gallery, as they run the BP annual portrait competition and exhibit the short-listed paintings, and winners. I liked many of the paintings, but there was something special about Frances Borden’s work that appealed to me: the (seeming) simplicity of the composition, and the bold choice of colour. “I think I’d like to try a self-portrait in oils,” I told my husband, buying a postcard of the work from the gallery gift shop on the way out. Continue reading →

A return to the art classroom

Posted on September 19, 2019 by viviennelingard

Ink & watercolour sketch

As I’ve mentioned before, I can get stuck with what I know when it comes to sketching, but nothing beats joining an art group from time to time and just going with ‘the flow’, literally. On the last two Saturday afternoons I attended Tony McNeight’s class in the teaching block close to my home. Centre table was a large striped vase filled with silk flowers and dotted around were a bundle of twigs, and numerous pots of coloured ink. ‘Mm’ the class said. Continue reading →

An artist who lived her dream

Posted on September 5, 2019 by viviennelingard

Frances Hodgkins was born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1869 and died in England in 1947. Last weekend the exhibition, Frances Hodgkins: European Journeys finished its run at the Auckland Art Gallery. I made sure I saw the exhibits, over 150 in all, as this artist has been a trail-blazer for the many female New Zealand artists who have followed. This particular artist stands out from the crowd because she forged an art career at a time when the art world was completely male-dominated. Frances Hodgkins left her birthplace for Europe in 1901 at a time when just a handful of women travellers were experiencing the world. What made Hodgkins different from those women was not mere travel to exotic countries, but her personal mission of becoming an artist of international repute. Continue reading →

I have a thing about fountains

Posted on August 28, 2019 by viviennelingard

Cherub fountain, Prato 2012

I do love drawing fountains, ones with figures spouting water in particular take my fancy. The first I drew was a few years ago when I happened to be in Prato, Italy. It was summer, and hot. My husband was at a conference, so I had time to sit and sketch. But when I found my subject, the sun beat down, my hands got sweaty, and I was forced to close my sketchbook. Back home, with the aid of a good photo I drew the cherub-like fountain feature above. It now hangs on the wall of my study. Continue reading →

A deviation from the usual

Posted on August 5, 2019 by viviennelingard

cordoba hotel

In May, after leaving Seville and the sketch group, we travelled on to Córdoba. The city was old and quite lovely, with streets so narrow our taxi almost scraped the walls. We turned into a square and stopped in front of our modern hotel. I was impressed. My husband less so, when I took the invitation to ‘upgrade’ our room. Boy, what a room. King-size bed, windows and balcony; I had no regrets about my decision, after the dingy, and rather stinky room at our last stop. However, it is not our hotel, or the wonderful churches, and artisan stores which surrounded our hotel, that I wish to dwell on here, but a different part of the city where we ventured. Continue reading →

Domestic sketches

Posted on July 22, 2019 by viviennelingard