BUSY FRIDAY AFTERNOON

After a quiet morning, a small posse turned up and got down to some picture-making in the afternoon. Judith and Jenneth worked on their watercolours, Ray carried on with his pencil study of Tom's grand-children and the young team (jay, sanjey, mark and nathan) got down to designing some trainers.

Ray very kindly gifted his portrait to proud grandfather, Tom. Top bloke.

FRIDAY 9 APRIL

A quieter morning at the Eco-House, with just Robert in the art room. An opportunity to update the blog and various mundane tasks.

 Robert kindly brought one of his many 'how to draw' books. This one was specifically about portraiture, so he felt it might be useful for Tom, who's currently tackling a portrait of his two grand-daughters.

RAY'S WORK IN PROGRESS

Working on a slightly smaller scale than his Masonic Lodge Fresco, Ray is sending me his work on the Abbey as it progresses for some online advice, rather than carrying it into the eco-house every day. A few of the students have been tackling portraiture recently, so Ray emailed me one of his efforts.(see below.)

JUST ANOTHER TUESDAY

School holidays.
Kyle, Sanjey and Jay arrived to do some drawing. They're in Primary six at Linburn School and said they do a wee bit drawing, but would like to do more. Seems like they enjoy the class ok, in spite of being the youngest participants(apart from when my son, Harris comes in for a bit of doodling.) Highlight of my day was hearing their conversation with the oldest member of the class, Robert(85).
'Were you in the war, Robert?' asked Kyle.
'Yup, I was in the Second World War.' answered the octogenarian.
'What were the trenches like?' queried Kyle.

'Wrong war son.' retorted the elder statesman of the art room.

This anachronism aside, the boys were well captivated by Robert's details of really large guns and his ability to evade questions about killings. Boys, eh?

Judy arrived at the class with a tupperware box full of cupcakes by way of saying thanks to Tom for giving her some ready-stretched paper. Oh, the cameraderie of it all..

Tom tackled a portrait of his two grand-daughters.

Ray popped by, looking like he might again avoid starting a drawing, but was soon attempting to capture Tom's grand-daughters - in pencil, not literally.

Ray's brother Ian dropped in with a canvas and a promise that next visit he'd begin a Van Gogh-esque portrait. I arranged to pop by his house on Don Road to see some of the work he has on his walls.(see below.)

Brilliant stuff from Ian. I particularly like the two Coyotes and the Hubble Telescope image in the kitchen. I had a cup of tea, courtesy of Anne-Marie, Ian's partner and we discussed setting up a Flickr site for Ian's work.