WoOZ

Envisioning Doha skyline as Emerald City backdrop.© Sue Pownall 2011

 The day after I returned to Doha I ended up at the welcome night of the Doha Players, the local theatre group. Somehow, I ended up volunteering to be involved in the set building for their upcoming Wizard of Oz (WoOZ), and better have been engaged to translate the director's and build team's ideas for the sets into workable designs. Sue Pownall- Artist, illustrator and set designer??? Unfortunately not as I am leaving Qatar tomorrow.

Waiting to audition © Sue Pownall 2011

My A3 sketch pad.

Anyway, my first task was to turn up to the auditions to view the space we would be working with. By coincidence the next day, Cathy Gatland, A sketch in time,  posted a lovely sketch of children rehearsing. Inspired I decided to see if I could produce something similar.

First off I drew the stage, and then concentrated on the groups of children sitting, standing,and singing. Considering how much children move about, I am very pleased with the results.

Then, the following week, I had to produce the first, and as it turned out last, set idea, which was for theEmerald City backdrop. I would like to have done more, and seen the project through, but life has other plans for me. Keeping me focused on drawing perhaps?

Auditions © Sue Pownall 2011

btw the sketches were done in pencil and the set with coloured inks and ink pen.

Art-based resolutions

I'm starting off the year quite well despite the difficult weather conditions by drawing mum & Nelson inside on the 2nd & 3rd. Then on the 4th I attended another life drawing class. I was not to happy with the results, my proportions kept going wrong, so switched to my favourite pen and gave up on the pencil to produce the piece above. I walked around the model trying different viewpoints and details, and ended up fairly happy with the results.

Reading Cathy of asketchintime I thought I would steal some of her ideas for art-based resolutions. Checkout her blog for some great illustrations.

"Manage my time better - far too much time is spent on the internet, which is perfectly entralling but doesn't get any painting or sketching done". I think that's a great place to start, although I will still blog my results, but maybe not spend so much time on Facebook, and reading various blogs. 
 
"Do what I love, love what I do ...- I’m not about to throw out all other mediums, but I would like to focus on getting better at... ". in my case I'm going to concentrate on my pen & ink. I've had lots of fun since September, when I started this blog, painting, drawing in pencil etc., but I want to develop and complete more ink drawings.

"I am also so enjoying sketching, the quick, immediate and spontaneous act which I’d never really considered an art form in its own right until I was exposed to wonderful work on Urban Sketchers". Me too, and I resolve to do lots more this year.

I left the UK on the 7th, so my future posts will be from Italy, I hope you like them and I look forward to reading your comments.

HAPPY 2010, MAY IT BRING YOU PEACE & HAPPINESS.