Saturday 13 August 2011

Tithe Barn, Bradford on Avon


I had a birthday recently. A horrible one. I don't mean horrible nasty I hasten to add... just one of those forty-plus-not-worthy-of-a-special-number-badge ones, that make you realise you're no spring chicken anymore no matter how juvenile you act. I also had to fill an online form in that asked for my year of birth. Do you know.... it took a whole 12 seconds for the list to scroll down to get to my birth year. Honestly, I aged another year waiting for it to come in to view.

What's this got to do with art, I hear you cry?

Well, my wonderful husband bought me a complete set of new permanent coloured pencils, to celebrate my youth disappearing. There were as many in the huge box as one for every day I have been alive, it seems! As some people may know I use watercolour pencils in the main as you can get precise, applied media, with the added bonus of being to add water and squooshing it all about 'artistically'. These new pencils are permanent and hard wax based. Radically different in as much as when you make a line/mark etc.... it stays there (only turpentine will thin it out and give that painterly feel.) Where they do come into their own , is the depth of colour you can get from them. They literally shine. The wax gives a lustre the watercolours cannot match, and you can use them on wood, photographs etc which should make for some interesting experimentation soon. As it turns out the only thing that has let them down is me! Presented with every shade of vibrant beauty, what did I draw- but a mainly dark interior of monochromes!

It must be my age.....



(pictured is the interior of The Tithe Barn- roof detail)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah yes, 40-mumble; alas I know it well. And even worse, something worse than 40-mumble is only a year or 3 off.
Enjoy the pencils - all of them :-)

Serena said...

I'm sure it creeps up when we turn and look the other way...

hope you get lovely art stuff too!

You have a lovely blog by the way :)

~Babs said...

Oh, Serena, Happy belated!
May it be your very best year yet!

Sigh,,,,you are but a babe,,,but I know, I know,,,,it's all relative, isn't it?
I'm wondering if soon my year won't even roll up on the list at ALL!

Those pencils sound intriguing,,as is the barn drawing.Such precision!