Persian plums.

The Aloo Tree,  ink © Sue Pownall 2013

 I'm really enjoying being an illustrator for the short story site, The Story Shack. Not only do I get different subject matter to illustrate, but I get the opportunity to use different styles. Above is this month's illustration, The Aloo Tree, whilst below is February's, How to Fail at Telemarketing. 

Pen & watercolour wash illustration.© Sue Pownall 2013

Finally, here is January's illustration.

Coffee. Pen & coffee © Sue Pownall 2013

You can see more of my illustrations for The Story Shack by following this link: StoryShack illustrations.

Also, you can read the stories How to fail at Telemarketing  and Coffee by clicking the titles, whilst you'll have to wait to read The Aloo Tree until it's published on the 18th.

Thank you for visiting my blog and I always appreciate the comments left.

Sue

Seminar sketches

Speakers and audience members, ink, 26 Feb. ©Sue Pownall 2013

This year as part of the Muscat Festival (you can see my 2012 festival sketches here, here, here, here, all posts in between until...  here), there was a Art Festival consisting of exhibitions and seminars/talks. I was able to attend four of the seminars, and took my A5 sketchbook to them all.

17 Feb Muscat projects & architects I ©Sue Pownall 2013

They were all very inspiring, I especially liked the talks given by architects with projects in the Sultanate. On another evening, artist Dominique Malarde was very interesting and I am a little annoyed that I missed her workshop due to water issues in my flat.

18 Feb Muscat projects & architects II ©Sue Pownall 2013

21 Feb ©Sue Pownall 2013

The talks were held in the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque meeting hall, which is why all women, including myself, wore scarves.

My photo (in orange) in Al Watan listening to Dominique Malarde

A bonus for going to the talks in the mosque was I got to see the mosque up close at night, something a non-Muslim normally gets to do.

©Sue Pownall 2013

©Sue Pownall 2013

Mad Hatter's Arty Tea Party

Eat me cakes, Chedi macaroons, & tarts.

 Spring 2012, I read about a Mad Hatter's Tea Party arranged by illustrator Lynn Chapman (Lynn's blog is here). I was so inspired by the drawings the group produced I decided to arrange my own tea party, which I held last weekend.

Planning started this January, whilst I was home in UK, and saw me making a dormouse, which inspired us all at the tea, as our drawings below show.

3 dormouses or is that dormice?

In a UK charity shop, I bought a silver tiered cake stand, which conveniently screwed apart so I could pack it easily. At the tea, I added tarts (custard not jam) and cakes I iced with "eat me". Some macaroons from the Chedi hotel were added later. I attempted to captured them all in the sketch at the top of this post. The other thing I did in the UK was to get material for my Hatter's hat and planned how to make it, with a great suggestion from mum.

Homemade hat and roses

In Muscat, I made my hat, paper roses - painting some white ones red, but the scones were bought at a local deli.
 
My flat is small so it was a small but select group of us who participated. Unfortunately one lady got lost and never arrived.

I for one had great fun and think the others did too.

The group shot thanks to the magic of a self-timer - just

Hidden Beauty. Festival Face No.7

Hidden Beauty. Ink. 36x26cm ©Sue Pownall 2013

On 21st November I made the first guide pencil marks on this drawing and it has been lurking ever since.
From starting it, I've ...

  finished Festival Face #6, you can see her here,

drawn and donated a drawing for a charity exhibition,

had a commission to do,

arranged & attended 2 sketching events,

had a stall for my art at a winter fair,

produced 2 illustrations for The Story Shack,

and spent 3 weeks on holiday in UK.

I guess that's enough reasons for it to have taken so long. 

Chinese New Year: the year of the snake

Year of the snake © Sue Pownall 2013

Just for fun, a drawing to celebrate the Chinese New Year, which since Sunday is the year of the snake.

Reference photo from BBC Nature site.
Chinese followers- I apologise for the bad calligraphy.


Last year's Chinese New Year's drawing can be viewed here: Year of the dragon

*****
Over on my site, you can see my first drawing of 2013, a commission, in Gallery 1 (just click the link).

Dreads & tats

Gaby, Charcoal A3© Sue Pownall 2013

Whilst in the UK I went to 2 more life drawing classes. As with drawing Terry I took charcoal to draw with as I'd had such fun before. In the 2nd class, I also tried using watercolours directly without under-drawing. I think as a side-effect of drawing portaits for my Festival Faces series, with both models I ended up drawing portraits during the long poses. Gaby was so pleased with my drawing of her that she took a photo of it. Below are other drawings of Gaby.

Gaby reclining. A3 Direct painting with Payne's Grey watercolour

Gaby A3 watercolour.

The day before I left UK, I got to draw Rachel and her tattoos again. I drew her before in September 2011 and you can see those drawings here. With the first long pose I drew the charcoal portrait below, which I think is a fair likeness. Then did the rough full body drawing. Can you tell I was pre-occupied with what I had to do before my flight the next morning?

Rachel Charcoal A3 © Sue Pownall 2013

Rachel in charcoal A3

Finally,  I drew another portrait of Rachel as a concerted effort to focus and relax.

Portrait in sepia pencil on A3

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Please note: I am switching over to blogging through my site, www.suepownallartist.co.uk/blog-art-of-a-nomad and plan to stop duplicating posts here. May I suggest you adjust your RSS feeds and readers to follow there?

WWSketchCrawl #38 the snow edition

A3 sketchbook ©Sue Pownall 2013

Worldwide SketchCrawl was the other Saturday, and I had planned to join the Urban Sketchers London. Unfortunately, snow fell and settled at my parent's village during Friday evening and night. In the morning I ummmed and ahhhh whether to chance the trip to London. Then, the snow started again as I got into the car to drive to the train station, which made up my mind not to go as I was worried I wouldn't get back from the city.

A3 sketchbook ©Sue Pownall 2013

Instead I took my parent's dog for a walk and once home I sketched my wellies, which are badly out of proportion, and his lead. Later I added my wooly hat to the page. Finally, in the afternoon I drew the dog sleeping on the sofa and the bird table.  Also, I started a rooftop view from my bedroom, but didn't complete it until Monday afternoon.

Jungle scenes aka theatrical life drawing

One of the final poses. That's me with a closed sketchbook - oops

 I am currently having a short UK holiday to see my family. Last Sunday saw me in London for my first visit of the year. I arranged to meet artist Cathy Read and for us both to attend Dibujo London's theatrical life drawing in the Barbican Centre's conservatory. Cathy & I have been in contact for several years through social media. It was lovely to finally meet face-toface and to draw together.

I'm drawing 3rd from the left with Cathy next to me in the hat.

We started off with various warm-up drawing exercises followed by the story interspersed with poses (averaging about 10/15 mins each). I'm fairly pleased with the drawings I made, especially the direct watercolour sketches but unfortunately due to the non-existent broadbandwidth I cannot upload any of the images... nor my photos from the day. So here are the photos taken by one of the organisers Karina Ellen. 

 Please check out Cathy's paintings on her site cathyreadart.com, she's just started one inspired by our day out.

It you are interested in future events, Dibujo London can be found at meetup.com/Dibujo-London-Free-theatrical-life-drawing.

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Edit: If you go to www.suepownallartist.co.uk/1/post/2013/01/jungle-scenes-aka-theatrical-life-drawing I have managed to upload some of my drawings there.

Terry

Terry A3 Charcoal © Sue Pownall 2013

 One thing I like to do when I visit my parents is to go to the Monday life drawing class, which has been running for years. I first went in December 2009, I attend several times in 2010, but last attended a class in September 2011. Knowing I was going today, on Saturday I decided to draw with charcoal, not something I've done in a very long time, so bought some ready for today's class. I was slightly nervous having not taken a class in so long and because of my choice of medium. Consequently, I did the three 5 minute warm-up sketches using a Conté sketching pencil and then happily used the charcoal for the longer poses. Usually I like the precision of pen and pencil and was surprised how much I enjoyed experimenting with the roughness of charcoal. By the way: Despite the photos here I didn't use tinted paper, but white and so the contrasts are greater.

A3 charcoal © Sue Pownall 2013

During the 3 hour class, I completed 12 drawings of which the two here are my favourite. I feel it was a very successful morning and I hope to go again before I return to Oman. What do you think?

A review & resolutions.

My illustrations published for the novel True Vines

  Review of 2012

For 2012, I had 3 words to guide me: Focus, Vision, Produce. From those words I had 3 resolutions of which some were more successful than others.

1. To produce a minimum of one finished piece per month.

Yes. Looking in the folder on FB there are 15 drawings for 2012. I have also produced 6 published illustrations and two commissioned portraits. Yea me - my most productive year to date. Whilst I still prefer to draw buildings and landscapes I have enjoyed working on my portrait series: Festival Faces, of which the first one sold and is now hung in its Australian home.

2. To exhibit at least twice in the year.

hmmm... This didn't exactly work out as I thought as I didn't have any work in exhibitions. However, I did end up with work hung in 2 galleries.

Through the OSFA, I submitted a piece to an exhibition in September, however the exhibition has been delayed and so will be hung sometime in the new year.

 
3. Continue marketing myself.

Yes. Throughout the year I continued to blog, both on my site and blogger, tweet and keep my facebook page up to date. I distributed over 100 business cards throughout the year and I had a stall at a winter fair in order to get publicity here in Oman. Also, I was interviewed on the local radio and had newspaper articles on the of the sketching events I arranged.

 Surprises from 2012.
A lovely surprise was following an email from the author Diana Baur, I produced both the cover illustration and section illustrations for her novel True Vines.

Something else I didn't anticipate was to start illustrating for the online short story site The Story Shack. To date I have had 3 illustrations published with more due in 2013.

With some of the artists of the Ghalya's Museum's Wall Painting project

Finally, a lovely surprise was getting to participate in a 100 artist wall art collaboration, which tested my little used painting skills, and led me to work alongside both Omani and international artists.

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Resolutions for 2013

2013 will see my art taking second place throughout the year. Following my month in Barcelona, my love for that city was renewed and my long-term goal is to move there. However, I'm not sure if financially I can do it within 2013. Like many artists I have to work to pay the bills and I also have a flat in Italy which as a partial renovation project needs work and money, so I have just secured a new job here in Oman with a better package. With the higher salary comes longer working hours, a necessary trade in order to reach my goal. The flat is for sale, if anyone is interested in a holiday home in the beautiful Pollino National Park, Calabria. Therefore, throughout 2013 my resolution and goal will be on getting my finances in order, so I can move to Barcelona as soon as possible.

Of course, my sketchbook will remain with me throughout 2013, I already have 2 commissions for drawings and further illustrations to do for The Story Shack. Also, I plan to go to the Urban Sketchers' 4th Symposium in July and... well who knows what other arty things will happen, but obviously my art passion will not be totally neglected. 

On a personal level, I resolve to eliminate but from my vocabulary and only focus on positive aspects. I also need to make sure I exercise throughout the year.

*****

May you fill lots of sketchbooks, produce lots of art, and have many laughs, health & happiness in the forthcoming year.