I hope readers will forgive me, but I decided to have a tiny exhibition of just a few of the many drawings I’ve done in a lifetime of art – you can always skip this and go to someone else’s story if you don’t want to look! The problem is, no artwork is worth doing if no one looks at it, just as a written article is useless without readers, and a piece of music needs to be listened to! So on that basis, I’m taking this opportunity to ‘show off’ a bit.
1. Bristol Docks
This is a pencil drawing I made while studying at Art College, many years ago. I sat on the dockside for about three hours to complete this. I’m afraid my old body wouldn’t allow me to sit about on a small stool for so long nowadays – I am more inclined to take a photograph and make my drawing from that, when I get home!
2. Old Car, Bristol Museum
The ‘Bristol Docks’ piece above pretty well covers this picture, which I drew at about the same time – at least I was able to sit indoors to complete this one!
3. My Drawing of a Wood Plane
I was an apprentice, in the printing industry when I made this colour drawing. It was to be incorporated into a carton design to package the actual product.
4. Port Albert
This is a pen and wash sketch I produced a few years ago, of Port Albert’s main street and it’s just about only shop. Sepia ink was used this time, to create a nice ‘warm’ effect.
5. The Old Bank, Yarram
Another pen and wash drawing, used in advertising for the building, which is the town’s Adult Learning Centre. This is the main Community building for the town, offering courses in all sorts of subjects from computer skills, quilt making, exercise and art to writing and many others.
6. House Drawing for a Sale
This simple line drawing was for a local estate agent, for newspaper advertising, hence the simple, clear lines, which print much more clearly than half tones on newsprint paper.
7. Our Cat, Missy
This is a line drawing with tone background of our pet cat, Missy. This is a very large drawing although it obviously appears small here. It is actually one metre tall and at that size, looks quite impressive!
8. My Friend Jim
Jim has been a mate of mine for many years and he allowed me to make this drawing of him, which is another large one, the same size as ‘Missy’ above. I used a ‘dot’ technique on this one to arrive at the shaded effects, which helped to keep the drawing clean and crisp.
9. The Enemy!
This drawing, in black ink with crayon colouring, was for an exhibition entitled “All Creatures, Great And Small”, so I thought I’d go for one of the smaller creatures living around and amongst us. I called it ‘The Enemy’ because flies are such a bloody nuisance!
There you have it, a slice of my line and wash drawing work. Perhaps I might show off some of my paintings at a later date – it all depends on how kind you all are about these efforts on mine.
