Life Drawing in Bristol

      I have recently changed jobs which means I have a lot more evenings free and I have used this time to try and make the most of living in Bristol and trying out new things! The last time I did any life drawing was in my second year of university 4 years ago and even normal drawing I am very out of practise. 

      I found that there were circus themed life drawing sessions at The Island in the city centre where they have a circus training space. As someone who takes aerial circus classes already I was really excited to try this and me and my friend Holly decided to go and flex our slightly underused drawing muscles.

      We went to two of the three sessions, each started with fairly short poses using rope, silks or trapeze. I was intrigued to see what types of poses we would do knowing that even posing for photos on circus equipment hurts a lot as there are many narrow pressure points and uncomfortable grips. I liked the way the models wrapped the equipment around them and used it to create interesting wraps and shapes for us to draw. 

      These sessions were untutored, which was nice because I am very out of practise, everyone just got on with their own thing. People were using all different materials, some just with sketchbooks some with large sheets of paper. There was no pressure with people walking around looking at your work it just felt nice to make marks and shapes and not worry about if something worked or not. 

      The people who ran the circus classes also have a regular spot at Cafe Kino on Gloucester road on a Monday evening. This week we decided to check it out.

We had two models, the one at the start was pregnant which was really interesting and beautiful to draw. I tend to prefer drawing women because they have such fabulous curves (sorry men).

      This session was a little different from the circus ones because we were able to draw longer poses, the two below were 20 and 40 minutes which gave a little more time to focus on adding more detail and working on the shapes. I will forever hate drawing hands, feet and faces, but maybe if I go to a few more sessions this will improve over time. 

      If you want to try out the monday life drawing sessions you can follow their facebook page here. It runs 6-8pm and costs £5 for the two hours with some basic materials available if you don't have your own. The circus sessions may be running again soon if you just keep an eye on their facebook page.

Start Something New

It is the start of a new year and the time where most people are assessing their situations and making various resolutions and plans for the year ahead. Whilst for many people this involves keeping fit and eating well, apple has come up with a different spin on it, which I really quite like.

They have a new promotional campaign for the new year which is called "start something new" the focus of this is creating art using apple products. Whether that is through inbuilt software and applications, or through third party apps which utilise the touch screens and cameras in iphones and ipads. They showcase a number of different pieces of work on their website here, naming the artists and the tools that they have used. 

I love the idea of this, whether you are using apple products or not I think it is a great time of year to start new projects. I decided to give my desk a good clear out and tidy up so that I could get doodling. 

Now anyone who might follow my instagram feed probably knows that I have been taking aerial classes in Bristol for just over a year now. After my final project at university focusing on circus, I had always dreamed of trying out aerial skills, and now I have gotten to a point where I am really happy with the many tricks I know. 

Today I had a really great training session, I have been trying to build up my calloused hands and pain resistance after a 2 week break over christmas and today I feel like I achieved a lot. 

I haven't drawn any people for a little while so I decided this was a good excuse to get some practise in. My rotring pens are unfortunately a little sad and dried up so I decided to play around with a glass dip pen I bought last year, the nib gives quite a thick line but there is a really nice flow to it which I like the feel of.

Desk all set up.

I don't think my people will ever have faces, especially using this thick a line!

I really like these cheap zebra mechanical pencils for sketching out lines and shapes to build on. 

Hopefully will do a few more of these and colour up the good ones, does anyone else have any design/drawing resolutions they fancy sharing? 

Glass Dip Pens and Kelmscott Manor

Last wednesday I went for a day out to Kelmscott manor with my mum. Kelmscott was the home of british designer William Morris for many years, after writing my dissertation on his work I have a bit of an obsession, unfortunately you weren't allowed to take photographs inside the house but you can see some of his work from when I visited the William Morris Museum in London here.

It was a lovely sunny day so we wandered around the gardens and I got some photos of the autumn leaves - such lovely colours!

We had a timed entrance so had a look around the gift shop before we went in, you could buy almost anything in some kind of Morris print.

My mum bought me an early birthday present, a venetian glass dip pen and ink set which is absolutely beautiful! 

It holds the ink in the ridges in the glass and it flows really nicely, I haven't used ink in ages so I did a few doodles.

Annarack Artist Feature

Hey, so this is going to be my second artist feature. This weeks shows the work of illustrator, textile and jewellery designer Annarack. She designs some beautifully patterned jewellery which you can buy here.

1-tell me a bit about your practise, what you make and how you go about making it?

Hello I'm Anna aka Annarack, an illustrator, textile and jewellery maker from Newcastle upon Tyne. I have quite an eccentric style as I love to use pattern and lots of colour throughout my drawings. My work starts from creating lots of little doodles and in the case of my jewellery I make lots of prototypes to try out different sizes, shapes and colour ways. If I'm confident enough sometimes I go straight into making final pieces.

2-what do you do to get inspired?

I get inspired by so much, mainly from very simple things I see around me. Going for days out and simply having a nice walk to refresh my mind gets me buzzing with ideas. I am also very influenced by many illustrators and try to keep within the trends. 

3-where do you work best and why that place?

I work in my bedroom. Its so cosy and there's everything to hand so it makes sense to work in it. There is so much in my room that it inspires me everyday. Anyone who has seen my room says it is amazing and like some sort of antique and curiosity shop. I have pile upon pile of antiquarian books and old maps, in fact every where you look in my room there is a map to be seen. I also collect compasses so I can find my way around my room.

4-what media do you prefer and why?

My illustrations are all entirely hand drawn, then scanned and enhanced in photoshop. I wish I knew how to use photoshop and illustrator properly so I could digitally colour my drawings. Computers frustrate me so I think I will stick to drawing everything by hand for the time being.

5-if you could choose one thing to draw for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Ooooooh now that is a hard one to think of...hmmm...to be honest I don't think I could possibly answer that question I like far too many things haha.

6-any advice to other aspiring artists?

Be positive and love what you do, cause if you don't no-one else will.

Zines preview

This is just a little sneak preview of some things I am working on right now. We are going to Bristols Artist Book Event (BABE) later on this year so I am preparing some zines to be screen printed in all different colours!

The first is of a group of men made up of body parts, haven't decided what this will be called yet!

The second is a little book of carnivorous plants.

Let me know what you think :)

The Sketchbook project

I feel like I haven't posted enough here recently. This is mainly due to it being christmas and me having no access to a scanner or much internet!

I generally put pictures of drawings I like on instagram as soon as I take them, give me a follow over there if you are interested @josiethejump. 

Over christmas I decided to do the Sketchbook Project as something to do aside from my uni work for a bit of fun. I chose to draw peoples dreams because the things people come up with are so much more strange and random than what I could come up with just making things up!

I ended up using a different style to what I have been recently. I kept with using black line and the odd bit of brush pen with quink in, but I used a graphite pencil in different ways to add shading and add a bit more dimension to the pictures compared with the way I usually just use flat shapes. 

Here is a few to start off, let me know what you think, I love reading peoples comments! 

I had a dream a polar bear chased me through my house and when I came downstairs he was eating the laces from my favourite shoes.

I had a dream I was pregnant with my friends baby.

I had a dream I dropped my new phone off a bridge into a river.

The sketchbook project

My plans for the Christmas holidays so far include going to the Lake District for a week, and then Newcastle for New Years which I am really excited about! I also have a lot of drawing to do...

I signed up to do the sketchbook project about 6 weeks ago but have been so busy with Uni work I saved starting it until today. I have decided to base it around strange dreams, mine and other people's. the images are definitely going to be strange but I quite like it :)

Drawing in a sketchbook you know will be seen by lots of people is pretty damned nerve wracking though.. I usually just draw and draw and don't worry about it but these I feel I should plan out in case I massively balls something up...

After watching the snow queen (which had a giant polar bear in it) I had a dream that a polar bear chased me around my house and then at the shoelaces of my favourite trainers.

Lynettes dream-running really fast like a dog and then flying into the air.

 

 

Am excited to carry this on :) comment if you have any weird dreams I can draw!

 

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Long lake work

Finally able to scan these in. I did a lot more ink and watercolour work due to the lack of scanners and the fact that Anna had a table full of batik dyes at the next table-so much fun to paint with!