First through the door on Friday was Tom Matson. I was at Woodmill High School with Tom's son, Alisdair. He lived at Calais View before moving to Rosyth. He was attending art classes at Lochgelly Centre until its closure, so was pleased to hear of our art room at the Eco-house. Tom is a source of much local knowledge. His Great-Great-Grandfather was a stonemason who worked on the construction of Dunfermline's City Chambers and also the Piers of the Forth Rail Bridge. After a morning of drawing, Tom and I headed over to the bowling club for our lunch and had a good chat over tattie and leek soup and stovies. Tom knew quite alot of the club members due to his own interest in bowling. I thought the indoor bowling facility looked amazing, all synthetic green and bright red and orange electro-scoreboards. The stovies were pretty good too!
Tom Matson at work
Michelle
Michelle came along to the art room with her mum, Morag. Morag lives in Almond Road, so thought she'd try the art classes, bringing her daughter along for some moral support. Morag is the second practicing Buddhist residing in Almond Road, as far as she knows. Michelle started working on a portrait of Charles and Lynn Strachan - their brother, Fred Strachan, handed in this hand coloured photo of the twins, taken when they were babies living in Whitelaw Crescent. (see below)
Lynn and Charles Strachan
Morag's Eco-house Drawing
Morag, in spite of her inexperience as an artist, produced this top drawing of the eco-house. (above) Well done Morag!
Also in the class, working away throughout the morning, were Maggie and Val. Maggie enjoys mixing watercolour work with calligraphy, which works well visually. Val, who normally paints, chose to attempt a quick portrait study.
John Mckenzie popped by for a nosey, with a view to attending the classes. He mentioned that he was attending fortnightly classes at the National Gallery in Edinburgh. We spoke a bit about looking at and critiquing artworks.
He and Tom had a discussion about aspect ratio in relation to composition! It was all a bit beyond me...
John
Local artist Robert popped in for a visit, just to say he'd be attending Tuesday's class. He had a good blether with the other class members. They were all pretty amazed at his energy and enthusiasm
Trondheim Parkway
Later in the day, a guy named Jim came by the art room, asking about the classes. He is interested in acrylic painting, and hopes to attend the classes from next week onwards. He divides his time between Linburn Road and a house in Florida. He brought a watercolour study of his home in the States to show me how he likes to work. Tom, Jim and I had a look at the above image of Trondheim Parkway and spoke a bit about composition and perspective.
