No classes yet – but ideas for more art in the Lockdown

Good morning from the desk in my bedroom. As I type this I am reminding myself of how fortunate we are – to have a house where four people can continue to work from home all at the same time, in different parts of the house – as long as the wifi does not play up, that is! On Sunday evening Boris Johnson spent half an hour telling us of the Government’s plans for the next stages of lockdown and yesterday the Government’s 50 page guidance came out, in an attempt to clear the muddy waters as to what we can and can’t do over the coming weeks. It seems that many people are not as fortunate as my family and will be returning to work in situations where they will have to be very careful for their own safety. As a Greater Manchester resident I am very mindful of any easing of the lockdown right now – as although the rate of infection and deaths might be down in London, in Manchester it is at it’s highest and we are not sure whether our local peak has been reached.

It looks like it might be possible to run art classes again, albeit socially distanced, from early July. I am not going to arrange anything at present but will wait until mid June to make any further decisions.

The weather has also decided to revisit February temperatures, so it is a very good time to be painting and drawing in the house for the next week or so.

Drawing

Try to keep drawing every day.

This could be your latest vase of ‘cheer up’ flowers – above is a drawing of mine from April this year. Or it could interior scenes from your house, bookshelves seem to be everywhere these days – but these are great drawing practice actually, really help to get to grips with rectangles in different forms. Chest of drawers, closed, or for greater difficulty open are very good too.

If you want to challenge yourself how about some cylinder drawings – for example the jamjars and tins that are maybe on the side in your kitchen, awaiting recycling make a great study.

Or it could be a mixed shape study – the latest weekly shop provides a huge range of shapes to draw – or what about a study of the laundry basket or your dressing gown on your bed?

A good facebook for posting your lockdown drawings is https://www.facebook.com/groups/covid19draw This page also has new prompts for drawing in lockdown and it is really interesting to see other people’s work.

Portraits and Life Drawing

This is also an ideal time to have a go at drawing or painting your captive family members or yourself. Or if you are isolated away from family members – why not draw them from your favourite photos. This could be the time to look back at those treasured family photos or to draw your teenage grandson when he was a very cute toddler, or to recall happy memories of trips with the children to the beach.

There are several online portrait and life drawing sites and also you tube videos. Some are paid for content. For example Tim Benson, the president of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters is offering online demonstrations and Q and A for forty pounds a session. https://thenewschoolart.org/art-courses/

Raw Umber Studios are offering a series of free life and portrait painting tutorials, some live streamed and some available on their you tube channel. See for example their free online portrait classes – https://rawumberstudios.com/online-portrait-drawing/

Landscapes and TV

As we are to be allowed out for as long as we like from tomorrow this does make it possible to go back to some outside sketching that is further afield than your back garden. Otherwise it is also a great time to revisit landscapes that you have loved and miss – studies and paintings from photographs is a great inspiration.

Channel 4 BBC showed some reruns of Bob Ross’s ‘The Joy of Painting’ during April, and these are still availalbe to watch on iPlayer – https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hjkv. Last night Radio 4 joined in the Bob Ross theme, with an interesting programme about Bob Ross and mental health – called ‘Happy Little Trees’ which I enjoyed listening too. This is available on the listen again feature. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000j1z2

Grayson Perry continues to entertain with his Art Club series, which is now half way through. Personally it has not changed the art I want to do but it is great entertainment and thoroughly enjoyable. https://www.channel4.com/programmes/graysons-art-club

Finally, for those of you that are wondering what I am looking like, in lockdown, without hair colour but in the studio, where I am still going to paint some days – here is a large self portrait.