In Print… and Drawathon update

As a budding artist/illustrator (who’s still a part-time student!) it’s very exciting to see yourself (well, yourself as embedded in your drawings) in print. The crisp pages, the smell of ink, the marks and shapes that seem familiar and yet are a cousin of your original -as they’re applied to someone else’s page and re-printed in such a fashion as to give them an entirely new character. I’ve been very fortunate recently to have some lovely commissions.

The first was a contribution to Random Spectacular, a lovely indulgent cheeseboard of illustrational talent brough together by the lovely Lewins at St Jude’s. I’ve eyed up their gallery for a long while, for everything that comes out is nothing less that beautifully made and of good taste, so I was chuffed to be asked to do some drawings to accompany a fine article by William Brown on Victorian ‘gin palace pubs’, as part of a new journal to raise money for Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres. I meant to publicise this before Christmas, but before I had the chance the limited edition of 750 copies had sold out in less than two days! So, belatedly, here are some pictures…

lovely cover by Mark Hearld

mine and Will’s page (as featured in Creative Review!)

second spread of pages -printed at a glorious full 240 x 350 mm size -what a treat for an illustrator

Drawn from one of the booths at the Princess Louise

The drawings were done in situ, with a pint of ale at hand, at the Princess Louise in Holborn, and Red Lion in Piccadilly, two of London’s best preserved Victorian pubs. If only every client asked me to go and draw in a pub. And an honour to be amongst such a worthy collection of artists.

With the new year came a freshly-printed copyof Five Farthings, with a front cover you may recognise. I was so pleased to hear from Margin Notes books, a small publisher with a lot of passion set on re-issuing unusual books, who spotted my Christmas card and thought it would make a suitable image for this story. Set in 1939, before the outbreak of WWII, it tells the story of a family who relocate from the quiet country to a flat that overlooks St Paul’s cathedral. I re-printed the linocut for a crisper finish, and with some wizardry by the designer, the result is a very smart and shiny deep blue cover. The first book cover is a big moment for any illustrator, and it means a lot that my first is a piece of London’s architecture -my first love.

Meanwhile, great news on the Drawathon front. In ten days I’ve not only doubled my target, but met it and gone further, the total raised (including Gift Aid) is just under £1,500. Thank you so much to everyone who’s donated. I am staggered, and I can’t wait to get drawing in March!  It’s actually been so successful that I have booked up all my drawing commission slots on the Marathon and have no less than 16 drawings to do! I wish I could take more, but its very important that I make the very best drawings I can for those donors who got there first. I’ve also overshot my budget by miles (I’m self-funding the travel/materials/printing/postage overhead costs -my fault for underestimating how quickly this would take off!) so I regret that I cannot accept any more donations via Just Giving. But you can still donate and get yourself a limited edition signed print from the day, and all the profit after overheads will go towards the Alzheimer’s Society! Please contact me directly via email to donate. With love and thanks, Jo x

Drawathon

UPDATE! UPDATE! I am now fully booked for commissioned drawings, but you can still donate and get yourself a signed, limited-edition print. Please contact me via email for details!

Just over six months ago my Grandmother, Christine Brock, a.k.a. ‘Granny Town’ (indeed we were fortunate grandchildren to have had a ‘Granny Seaside’ too), passed away.

Her death was also her release from Alzheimer’s, which had frustrated her last years, and haunted our family as we watched an energetic, cheerful and loving individual slip away from us and recess into a shell of a woman.

As is often the case, after her death I found out more about her, and wished I’d been able to ask her more questions about her life, her experiences, her enthusiasms. I’d known that she’d trained at the Regent Street Polytechnic before becoming a seamstress near Regent Street, for her nimble fingers kept my sister and I in hand-made dresses as children. I hadn’t known that (after having children) she had re-trained as social worker for the blind, and would take long buses up from south London to Mile End and Stepney to work with the visually-impaired. I often think of her work as I wander around my own necks of the East End. She often sketched, used watercolours, embroidered and knitted in her spare time and I now long to ask her about how precious her talents were to her after the experience of helping people with limited or no visibility.

Before she became ill, she was always asking to see my sketchbook. I’m only sorry that by the time I had the courage to commit to art and produce drawings on a regular basis she was already bed-bound in a home and unable to recognise her family, let alone give me a critique which, with her creative eyes, would have been so rewarding. On a good day when the ‘fog’ wasn’t so heavy, a frail and contorted figure in a bed was still just able to turn the pages of my sketchbook, and point and gesture at my drawings. Her words were incomprehensible, but she appeared to recognise the pictures for what they were, and as her skinny fingers traced my lines her murmurs would dip and rise in tone, her eyes would scan the paper, and for a tantalising moment, I would recognise my grandmother.

So many people have carefully and more eloquently written about this degenerative disease that I don’t feel I can add more. I can only say that from my own perspective that Alzheimer’s seems to be one of the cruellest diseases for both the sufferer and, as it irreversibly develops, the loved ones who find themselves with a living ghost.

On March 28^th  (when Christine would have turned 85) I will be staging a  Drawathon, or Drawing Marathon, to raise money for the Alzheimer’s Society. The Society gave my family invaluable support during such a difficult time, and as well as caring for families and sufferers of the disease they are the leading researchers into dementia. Drawing is what I do and the skill I can offer, so it seems more appropriate than climbing a mountain or cycling a bike through Europe. It also feels right given the pleasure Granny Town took in drawing, and that the act of drawing is a mentally stimulating activity, the kind of exercise for the brain advocated by scientists to stave of the disease.

A drawing by Granny of her cat

 

Studies of Grandad doing the crossword, as drawn by Granny

 

Grandad doing the crossword, as drawn by me, October 2011

I will set out early, with sketchbook, stool and thermos, and draw all over the City, fending off tourists, gangs of schoolchildren and people stumbling out of the pubs in the evening. Allowing for breaks (and a decent night’s sleep in-between!), I will complete 24 hours of intense drawing over the course of two long days. I would be grateful for every pound that I can raise, and I’d like to give something back. Sponsors who pledge £10 and over will receive a small limited-edition reproduction print of the best drawing of the day. I’m also seeking generous souls to recommended a site within or close to the City of London, and stump up £50. In return, they will receive the original drawing/painting done on the location of their choice*. All the money raised will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Society. How do I sponsor this great artistic endeavour by getting an original artwork at a bargain price whilst also playing a small part in the fight against dementia, I hear you ask? It’s simple…

1) Visit my page at Just Giving and donate: http://www.justgiving.com/Joanna-Moore-draws

2) If you fancy a commissioned drawing, recommend a location with your message: a building, view, scene, theme, idea, even a person!

*The small print: 1. In order for me to meet my target of drawing as much as I can I need to spend minimal time travelling, and preferably dash between locations on foot. I will try and plan a route from one end of the city to another, so help me by commissioning central locations within a three mile radius of St Paul’s Cathedral 2. Drawings will be done from public places where I feel safe: so please don’t ask for dark alleys or awkward positions. 3. Drawing will be around a5-a4 in size and vary in medium/style. I can’t predict how my eyes, head and hands will be functioning after hours, so you’ll have to trust me to follow my instincts and do the very best I can! 4. I retain copyright of drawings.

I would love to raise over £1000 for the Alzheimer’s Society. Please get involved by sponsoring me or commissioning a picture for yourself or a friend, or forward this on to anyone who may be interested.

Thank you everyone who has already donated almost £500 in the first two days already, especially people I have never met but knows my work and out their faith in this crazy idea, fingers crossed we can beat that by the end of March!

UPDATE! UPDATE! I am now fully booked for commissioned drawings, but you can still donate and get yourself a signed, limited-edition print. Please contact me via email for details!

Ink and Light

I’ve been advertising my own Christmas cards here (around 200 sold though, very chuffed to think my pictures have made their way through letter boxes all over the country) for weeks so I can’t really fob my readers off with them again. But what better way than to celebrate some holiness than bringing together some light, printing and Gothic goodness. A few weeks ago I had an epic drawing session at York Minster  and left so inspired that I couldn’t wait to make work from my drawings. I’d been building (excuse the pun) up the courage to bring my love of architecture and monoprinting together, and the cathedral’s breathtaking cascades of light over stone seemed ideal for the ‘reduction’ method -wiping away inks to let the sharp whites of the paper show through.

My first print is a large one based on a view through a side aisle. I haven’t reproduced it, but simply worked freehand from the sketchbook in front of me, on a larger plate, when then creates a reversed image. This was quite long and fiddly to make, as is often the case when you psych yourself up about something ambitious. I wanted earthy but unrealistic colours and so mixed up this fairly punchy ochre as a first layer. One of the most exciting things about monoprinting is that you only get one shot -and that you can’t predict how colours will print, side alongside each other, and most tantalisingly, sit on top of each other. So it was with a fair amount of nerves that I mixed a dirty blue for the next layers, crossing my fingers that when overlapped they would not make a snot green. The second print was fiddly, I thinned the ink with a plate oil to make it more workable and translucent with a roller, and carefully cut a stencil to define the bright areas against the shadowed foreground. I even warmed the plate slightly to remove the roller marks and make sure the layer was consistent. I love the suspense of lining up one set of hours’ work over another set of hours’ work, crossing your fingers as you hope that they register, and holding your breath as you commit, lower the blankets and run it through the press. Thankfully this time it worked. As I learn more about prints, I realise the fewer steps an artist makes the better, unfortunately its a lesson of ruining many good prints by over-working or mis-registering them. I took a gamble, and decided to run this through one more time, with some finer details in stronger blue. Every layer is hard to line up, as the residue from the previous layers disappear. But it worked, and I was very happy (and, importantly, decided to stop). As I often whine, I have little confidence in using colour, but was really pleased with how the soft blue knocked out the strength of the ochre, creating a contrast but also adding density to the shadowed foreground.

 

 

After a large, carefully-made piece I wanted to reward myself with an alternative exploration of my theme. At the next printing session, I put aside my sketchbook, denying myself any reference material, and took out a tiny plate, smaller than shown on screen. I sat and thought for a while, reflecting on my impressions of the minster, my initial reaction to the light and space. With a few inks, I started smearing traces of the minster in my head upon the metal. Memories and imagination mixed. The results became not so much York but a reaction to Gothic architecture on a wider scale, drawing on many other cathedrals I’ve visited and been in awe at over the years. Some are clearly an aisle, a clearstory, an arch. Some became more abstract, drawing on reflections so that the church spaces almost become pools, this last one even starts to look like a wateryVenetian scene. It was satifying to put aside my drawings and tap into a different part of my brain, and while doing so put my trust in a wonderful medium, that felt much more intuitaive than the last time I tried working from memory.

Merry Christmas all! With many good wishes for all that 2012 brings, and as ever, thank you for following! Joanna x x

 

Beuckelaer’s fish

Regular followers will know of my fondness for drawing from paintings. To de-construct an artist’s composition and narrative, priorities and hierarchy of characters, is an incredible process and one that makes me want to make ambitious pictures myself. To plan, pose, and picture elements into a whole that will take me from a draughtsman into an artist. Recently I was set with the task of drawing a painting in the National Gallery for a total of five days. I am used to drawing fast, so I was unsure as to how exactly I could spend so long on one image. I set out to find a complicated picture, with an array of elements to give me occupied, but also a challenging arrangement and different levels of perspective. Just over a year ago I had a lot of fun recording Joachim Beuckelaer’s ‘Fire’ and decided to return to the Flemish master. Another in the series, set in the magical but busy octagonal thoroughfare of Room 11, was ‘Water’, it grabbed me.

It’s an exciting portrait of fish sellers, their stall and their wares: the wonders of the natural world. Behind the pointed arch is the scene of Christ appearing to the disciples for the third time after his Resurrection, performing the miracle of  filling Simon’s nets after the fishermen’s own unsuccessful night. The combination of the scenes is touching in relating contemporary fishermen with Christ’s strong links with the water (walking on water, loaves and fishes for the 5,000, and at least four of the disciples were fishermen…) , as well as celebrating the harvest of the often perilous sea, the choice of fish no doubt boosted by extensive travel and trade in Europe in the Sixteenth Century.

As I drew, I found myself slowing, becoming engaged with each fish in turn as much as each human, so distinct were their characters. Normally I might do my best to get the people’s faces ‘correct’, but quickly I realised that the excitement of this pictures, like the rest of the series, was its arrangement, its confidence in distorting multiples sets of perspective to display so much, and create careful channels in the spaces in-between things -the objects, people, and intermediate are carefully made to hang of each other, and the result is a dense tapestry.

I can’t say that drawing in one of the busiest rooms of the gallery is the most enjoyable experience. It was difficult, sitting for so long balancing a huge board on my legs untill they became numb with pins and needles. The light constantly changing from skylights and -. I had to sit close enough to see details, but craned my neck and worried the perspective would be distorted from below. As much as attention is flattering, the more the drawing progressed the more visitors huddled around me, and with them came inevitable interruptions. In such circumstances I tend to keep my eyes to the wall and turn my mp3 player up to shut out distraction. But it had been a worthwhile journey, for every irritating tap on the shoulder and gaggle of school children standing in front of me, there were also some lovely conversations with visitors, discussing why I’d picked that picture, and why I felt it might help my own work. So here’s the pretty-much-finished drawing, at just under A1 size. It’s now on my bedroom wall gazing down on me, and congratulating me on approximately 30 thirty hours of work, I think the longest I’ve ever spent on one thing…

The Whitechapel Nobody Knows (Part One)

Since I seem to have my own set of readers I have reproduced my recent contribution for the wonderful Spitalfields Life blog… a very enjoyable opportunity to explore my east end surroundings and hidden wonders with the ever-curious Gentle Author.

December 9, 2011

by the gentle author

I am delighted to resume my series of The East End Nobody Knows in collaboration with Spitalfields Life Contributing Artist Joanna Moore, by visiting Trinity Green Almshouses off the Mile End Rd. You only have to step through the emerald green gates to discover that this place has kept its age-old repose. Designed Sir William Ogbourne in 1695, as almshouses for retired and invalid mariners upon ground given Captain Henry Mudd of Ratcliffe, the conception was of fourteen cottages around a central chapel. Yet even though a bomb destroyed the rear half of this courtyard in 1943, the ship-shape sense of order is miraculously still intact. Look out for Basil, the old ginger tom who takes the role of master & commander now all the seafaring folk have departed.

Sculptor Roy Emmins lives in a tiny flat built upon the roof of a nineteen forties residential block at the rear of the Royal London Hospital, where he has created a wonderful sculpture garden to exhibit his works among plants and flowers. With a natural sensitivity to the anatomy of animals, Roy’s work is in a magical realist vein, evoking an entire of menagerie of creatures in stone, bronze, wood, paper mache and even tin foil. Six days a week, Roy walks from his flat in Whitechapel to his studio at the far end of Cable St where he has been working alone secretly for the past ten years, creating a vast body of superlative works, and up here in his sculpture garden among the chimney pots of Whitechapel, Roy’s sculpture exists in its own enchanted universe, known only to the lucky few.

These modest terraces in Walden St and Turner St – dating from 1809-15 – were derelict for fifteen years and would have been demolished if it had not been for the intiative of Tim Whittaker, Director of the Spitalfields Trust. He recognised the dignity of these self-effacing structures, built for the lower middle classes, their early residents included a surgeon, a sea captain, a plumber, a shopkeeper and a Chelsea pensioner. Completed two years ago, this award-winning restoration employs weatherboarded extensions in an historically appropriate vernacular aesthetic to win extra space and uses salvaged materials to subtle effect in preserving the shabby poetry of these old houses. As Tim put it to me, “I wanted to give Whitechapel back a bit of the romance it had lost.”

From Roy Emmins’ roof you can look down upon St Augustine with St Philip’s Church in Newark St, a soaring example of mid-nineteenth century red brick gothic that today houses the Royal London Hospital’s Library and Museum. If you walk into the ground floor you will encounter the sepulcral hush of medical students cramming for exams, while down in the crypt is the medical museum – open to the general public – where you can discover attractions as various as the Elephant Man’s hat, collections of gallstones preserved in specimen cases as if they were gulls’ eggs, Victorian autopsy sets and George Washington’s dentures.

Illustration copyright © Joanna Moore

You may also like to take a look at

The Spitalfields Nobody Knows (Part One)

The Spitalfields Nobody Knows (Part Two)

The Town Mouse and friends at Sunday (Up)Market, Spitalfields

A couple of months ago I sounded out the idea of trying out a stall in Spitalfields with two of my friends. This Sunday the three of us woke early to carry boxes (and get our respective nice boyfriends to carry the heavy boxes) to Brick Lane, where we have opened up a print stall at the Sunday (Up)Market in the weeks coming up to Christmas. I really enjoyed showing drawings at the Town House this time last year, but this year was itching to try my hand at showing prints and drawings at a busy market. It’s a very different affair, reproducing images into limited edition prints that have to be priced much lower than original artworks, for what is very much a tourist and Christmas shopping market.

Let me introduce you to my fellow artists…

Helena Maratheftis a.k.a. Thefty, loves bright colours, rhinestones, glitter, robots and dinosaurs and many other things, which are combined in wacky paintings or collaged with photographs into humourous and eye-catching prints. You can see some of her work here.

Nhatt Nichols, a.k.a. NhattAttack, is a fellow Prince’s Drawing School graduate, with a flair for Graphic Novels, woodcuts and etching, who specialises in animals and rather gothic black and white prints, even using records as a surface for drypoint, you can find her work here.

I love these girls because they have come from all sorts of other interests to follow art, they have utterly different ideas and mediums, but a lot of energy and drive in pursuing their craft.We’re also all new to selling work and putting it out on such a busy and public place, so its exciting to be testing the water with fellow entrepreneurs.

Our first day was thrown together but we think it looked rather fab, sitting three very different styles next to each other really brings out our work, and it was great fun to be in good company throughout the day and people watch, see all the other crafts and vintage clothes on offer, as well as chat to visitors. I deliberately picked out London-themed work, and it was lovely to hear from tourists who recognised places in the capital that they’d discovered.

We have a range of Christmas cards, limited edition prints starting at only £8, fine art reproductions from only £15, etchings and one-off monoprints, right up to Helena’s colourful A2 posters. We even have ready-framed prints to save people the hassle amid their busy Christmas shopping. So do pay us a visit, say hello, and even better stock up on Christmas goodies. We’ll be running the stall at Up(Market) on Hanbury Street/Brick Lane, every Sunday up until Christmas, 11am-5pm, a stone’s throw from Spitalfields Market and Liverpool Street Station, follow this link for a map.

Setting up

Work by Nhatt, myself, Helena

Happy customers!

At York Minster

This week I had a short but sweet visit to the beautiful city of York. Staying with a good friend who works at the university, I was met off the train and whisked to cosy medieval cottage and strong G&T, and in the morning whilst she set off to work teaching history of art I took myself around town. I’m so used to London’s sprawl that I forget how nice it is to just potter around a city with barely any cars. It also never fails to surprise me how friendly everyone outside the capital is, from greetings in the street to chatty shop staff, to all the minster staff. I’d only planned to spend half a day at the Minster as the last week I’ve not been in the mood for drawing. But its clearly been too long since I had a decent architectural interiors session, and I underestimated just how staggeringly beautiful York Minster would be on a cold, crisp, November day. So here is a bumper post celebrating my re-union with a long-standing love: Gothic architecture.

Spending two long afternoons in the minster was incredible, and the friendly Verger even let me stay in the choir whilst the nave was used for a graduation ceremony, so for few hours I had the entire east end of the church to myself. I don’t think I’ve drawn so intently for a long time, and alone in the choir, with classic music trickling through my mp3 player, mesmerised by springing vaults and diffuse light pouring across ancient stones, I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed and rather emotional. I often find Gothic architecture more natural to draw than Neo-Classical. The vaulted arches are easier on the wrist, and I delight in vertical lines, so every column and shaft is a decisive stroke. Pinnacles and naturally inspired ornamental motifs are a treat, a swift change in wiggles and wobbles, that feel much like caligraphic marks. The best thing about drawing old cathedrals is picking up on their different styles and historic periods, my art history training kicks in and for a while I become an archaeologist, unpicking awkward meetings between stones a century or two apart, and being caught off-guard by asymmetries.

Its also incredibly difficult to determine tones. Though so much of the building is built of stone, the variety of light from different directions, multiplied across different forms, is confusing, especially as it changes in late afternoon. This is most tricky, and therefore more absorbing, at moments where openings occur, and further vaults, arches and windows can be seen, or ceilings stretch into the distance.

When (if) I win the lottery or find a rich patron, I think I’ll have to get myself a campervan and spend a year touring the country, and draw every cathedral and minster, and then there’s the ruined abbeys, and churches… Anyone care to put me up?!

 

Looking west down the Nave

Looking from the side aisle of the nave eastwards, through the north transept

North transept looking south, under the crossing

South of the choir, looking west behind the choir screens

The crossing

The west front, done at speed in the cold!

In the choir facing south

North aisle off the choir, monuments in changing light

The chapter house at night, enjoying the uplighting against dark winter skies

Claude at the National Gallery

Since the busy September show I’ve relocated my studio to my garage. Now equipped with lights, a heater, a big desk, shelves, even a rug, it’s surprisingly cosy. Now I have the space, resources and time to make my own work. The only problem is that I don’t know what to focus on next. An anticlimax after the show was always inevitable, and it been great to sell work (even my first paintings!) as for all the encouragement of family and friends, nothing is as validating as complete stranger taking pleasure in your work, and being prepared to part with their hard-earned cash for it. The last year has been like a foundation course for me. The problem of moving on from here is not lack of choice, but too much. Like writer’s block, being stuck seems a selfish and daft exercise when life is short and the spirit is willing. But how can one settle on one theme when there is so much of interest?

That’s enough dithering. My solution is to have a break and take some time to study some other artists, as this is the best way of inspiring me to get myself in gear. So lately I’ve been looking up some monotypes in the British Museum (getting to call up and handle prints by Degas and Maggi Hambling is pretty exciting), taking in Degas’s Ballet show at the Royal Academy, enjoying seeing a mixture of shows around Mayfair (Keith Vaughan at Osborne Samuel gallery, Elizabeth Frink at Beaux Artes) and returning the National Gallery. The school has a great Friday evening class run by the excellent Robert Dukes, who is articulate and dedicated in his teaching as he is in his fine painting. Focusing on just one painting in a relatively quiet gallery is a lovely way to wind down at the end of the week. Regular readers will know that landscapes aren’t really my thing, which is exactly why its a good idea to be forced to sit down and study something I’d normally walk past.

So here’s a couple of hours with the French painter Claude. As it turned out, he had plenty of surprises for me. I thought I was due for straight-forward naturalism, but I found out that this painting, Landscape with Aeneas at Delos, was anything but. Claude seems to have combined three of four different sets of lighting in his work. An even glow covers the scene which contradict his selected shadows, which are strong in tone but oddly unclear in form. Unlike this image from the internet, the painting in real life is more extreme in shadows, so that the stream bank and shaded area to the left is barely discernible. He also takes great pains to create dark and light layers over and over each other to create depth, and then direct spotlights on individual characters. I also loved how objects layered each other, the front pillars lead your eye to the trees and wall behind, and vertical elements are echoed across the right of the picture by the temple and tower beyond, the march pace slowing to the lighthouse.

Drawing it, I was very confused by why the tree on the left seemed to be cut so abruptly by the frame, as if the painting had lost a few inches. But I later had the chance to study Claude’s own copy of his drawing (apparently he always made such recordings so that others couldn’t copy his designs) and see that this spliced tree was a deliberate choice and clearly done to visually balance the scene. I couldn’t resist testing how my own recording of the painting compared to Claude’s own to know how my visual perception relates to a master from over three hundred years ago. And with interesting results. I’ve clearly made my figures too small, and my temple. Claude seems to have re-drawn his bridge too small, but has enlarged his temple, and large trees, and I think where he pays attention to his own painting shows his priorities, emphasising the design that he is proud of.

Meanwhile I’ve started putting together that online shop I’d promised, you can follow the link to the right hand sidebar to reach it. And what better time to show off my new Christmas cards. After enjoying myself with my first linocut a few months ago I invested in an expensive Swiss cutter and some nice lino. What a difference, it was like slicing butter. So smooth that it’s produced an entirely different effect to the craft knife (although I also like its choppy textures). I’ve made a set based on the last year’s night drawings, featuring St Paul’s Cathedral, Tower Bridge and Christ Church Spitalfields. And here’s a detail print tried on new Japanese paper, which is beautifully crisp -the actually print is about half the size of how it appears on screen!

Bodybuilders… and my little brother

Just back from a busy weekend in Nottingham to see the UK Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation’s National finals. What an amazing experience, to mingle with dozens of huge oiled and tanned characters arriving and awaiting their turn for various classes of competition, before heading into the packed Royal Theatre at Nottingham to see them line up on stage. It was a whole new world to watch, with men of every shape and size, aging from juniors to over 50s, in weight catagories right up to 100kg. Music pumped over pumping muscles, and around the auditorium family and supporters cried out over each other to support their hunks.  It was a lovely atmosphere to draw in. Funnily only a year ago I was trying to capture dancers at speed, and ever since I’ve relished the challenge of movement, it had been about capturing dynamic gestures with graceful strokes.

Body-builders, it turns out, are a lot harder! Double-biceps, front lats, side chests, back biceps and spreads, and front abs and thighs…. were all key poses for judging.  And then the qualifying athletes performed their own routines, mixing classic poses with more dynamic and theatrical ones ( ancient Greek statues of discus-throwers or warriors). I quickly had to give up on recording specific anatomy and simple lines, instead the challenge was to pin down incredible shapes, and the essences of solid forms in contortion before they twisted and spun into the next shape. This was the ultimate life drawing session, human beings pushed to the physical and mental extreme, and for all their bulk and sweat, they often looked majestic, like I imagine the legendary Spartans did.

Here are some sketches…

various poses for the judges

waiting to take their turn…

Action!

muscles!

throwing amazing shapes

Pose off! all the guys come together for a muscle-fest

So why was I here?

Well, my little (!) brother came First in the Junior class of the UK Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation National finals. He has worked so hard for this over the last year, and last intense months of three-times-a-day gym sessions, strict diet of turkey and protein shakes, as well as dehydrating his body this week to show off every muscle and vein. He beat many others to qualify for the National finals, and this weekend saw off 22 rivals in stages over  two days to claim his title (and tasteful trophy). In-between we watched with bated breath through his own routine to music (awesome choice of DJ Fresh’s ‘Louder’) and then the ‘pose off’, where he and nine other oiled-up young Herculean men free-styled their best poses side-by side. The Moore family were on the edges of their seats as the final six were whittled down, and finally our boy was left standing. We are so, so, proud of him and everything he has achieved, I don’t think there was a dry eye between us. Well done Nic!

double-biceps for the judges to compare each contestant (little bro is first on the left)

Nic gets to show his stuff with his own routine…

…and takes first place!

Between drawing and painting

A few months ago I experimented with my first monoprints, (ambitiously!) out in the open on Richmond riverside. I enjoyed the process I’ve been doing more here and there, and have found it great for expressing the bits of London I love in a different manner. Here’s a couple done from the (windy!) balcony of the Tate Modern, overlooking the church spires on the north bank of the City. And one done of the view of Blackfriars Bridge (worked from the same original drawing I used for my linocut).

This term I’ve also taken a class in life drawing, something I normally get bored of, but this time made exciting by monoprinting. It’s a messy process, even in a calm and quiet studio, but utterly absorbing as you wipe ink, twist rags, use the end of a paintbrush for sharp lines, pad gently at the surface to extract textures.

Most of the techniques were developed by Degas over a century ago, and often used as a base for drawings which were worked over to become (more famously) his pastel pieces. Although when put together the set can look a little gloomy, it’s inspiring to reflect on Degas’s words ‘If I had to live my life again, I would work only in black and white‘. Odd, for someone known as an exquisite colourist. But he’s right, there’s something very liberating about discarding colour and living only for form and light and shade, in making bold, graphic gestures, and working quickly and decisively. The ink dries out after an hour, so you have to be fast. As ever with printing, it’s a nervous game putting your trust in the plate and paper, never knowing how it’s going to turn out until as its pressed, hidden from view. But unlike other intaglio printing (etching, aquatint…) you don’t get to make more prints, you have to grit your teeth and jump. With the method you can get a (almost) second shot, in re-working the plate on the ghost image that is left, but no two are ever the same. And given that I’m an impatient and indecisive creature, that suits me very well.

p.s. In other news, I hope to be opening an online shop within the next couple of weeks. It will sell both original artworks and a selection of limited-edition prints. It’s an exciting and nerve-wracking prospect, and hard to work out what might take people’s fancy (artists are always the worst judges of their own work!), so I’d be grateful to any of you regular readers and subscribers for thoughts on what might go down well!  Many thanks all…