FRIDAY 26 MARCH

Gary Philp popped round first thing this morning. Ex-Inchkeith Drive resident Gary, discusses the finer points of artmaking current Inchkeith Drive man, Robert. (see below.)

Next in was Graham Jordan.(above) Graham lives in Almond Road an is a self confessed computer nerd. He popped round to chat about assisting me with the construction of my new website.

Lots of lively chat in the afternoon with a full classroom, looking through old Woodmill High School magazines and trying to remember names and faces from back in the day..

FRED

Fred Strachan, who began life in Bute Crescent, is a willing model for portrait drawing classes. With his George Clooney good looks, he proves a popular model with the ladies. Anne from the Eco-House has asked if she can take him home for some extra curricular modelling.

DANNUAL DIOR

Alec Birrell told us about a chap he met while he was down working on his boat at Limekilns.. I have to question the validity of this purveyor of  "fabulous garments and treasures from around the globe"

WOODMILL HIGH SCHOOL PUBLIC ART PROJECT

I've now received the photographs from the Woodmill Pupils. Our aim is to use these photos as a starting point for the Public Art Project. There are many varied and interesting images to work with, a few of which are featured below:

TUESDAY 16 MARCH

On the way to the Eco-House, I passed St.Columba's High School. Their 'Fairtrade' logo looked great. 

Another busy day at the house. Robert arrived early, along with Michelle, who hadn't been in for a couple of weeks. Robert, as promised, brought his copies of 'Bygone Dunfermline', the local paper full of nostalgic imagery. John turned up a little later, carrying on with his thunderstorm painting. The banter in the art room was great. John had me looking up on the internet, a Diego Velasquez' painting, 'The Old Woman Cooking Eggs' so he could show everyone some 'real' painting. John had seen the painting on a trip to the National Gallery in Edinburgh. (see below)

 Diego Velasquez. Old Woman Cooking Eggs. 1618.

 Velasquez was nineteen when he painted the above!!

Alec Birrell

In the afternoon, Alec Birrell popped by. He was just back from painting his boat which is moored down at Limekilns. The old salty seadog is planning on coming to the class on Fridays, which will be great as he always has a good story to tell. He used to live down in Dunn Crescent, and was talking of his fond memories of Abbeyview.

Back to Michelle. Not just good with pencil and paint. Turns out she's a bit of a singer. Little dark horse that she is! Check out some of her tunes on MySpace. click here for a listen. Just wait til we go to the Sunday night Karaoke up at the Bowling Club! X Factor look out!!

WORK IN PROGRESS

John and Carolyn got wired into their work. John's working on a moody landscape and we're trying to overcome his fear of applying thick layers of paint. He's also enjoying working at the easel as opposed to the table-top. Carolyn is working on some hand-painted cards. She desperately wanted to get plenty of paint on the card's surface! (see below)
Carolyn also mentioned that her son was the man responsible for building the castle for Abbeyview's Gala king and Queen. We're currently tying to locate the castle to have on show in the art room.
Mrs Webster, from Inchkeith Drive, popped round to pick up her raffle prize, a drawing I had donated. Unfortunately, it was not back from the framers, so i'm going to drop it off at her house next week.

TOM'S GIFT

Ann, Eco-House volunteer and George Clooney lover, was extremely chuffed to receive one of Tom's excellent watercolour studies. Tom is considering painting a portrait of the legendary Clooney to gift to Ann in an attempt to get her to stop talking about him on a daily basis!!

Ann has had a good week in the art room, not only receiving a painting for her house, but a new haircut too. I brought my haircutting equipment and we had a snipping session last Friday.

'Preparation work in Progress.'