Hello dolly!
Porcelain dolls were used in the 1920’s to help train nurses in the treatment of tuberculosis at the Royal Seabathing Hospital, Margate.
Nowadays they are used to give you nightmares in the Margate museum.
Portraiture course: week 6
The last week of my portraiture course. A single sitting in acrylics.
I’m definitely hooked, so watch out friends and family… I’ll be looking for victims… um I mean sitters!
South Downs Lambs
Corrie fan
Gripped as Eileen discovers Pat Phelan is the murderer in tonight’s Coronation Street…
Portraiture course: week 5
You know it’s going to go well when you turn up half an hour early for your course and it takes you 10 minutes to realise.
Off to an impressive start, I proceeded to spill an entire jar of thinners and an entire jar of coffee all over the floor.
As well as all that, I also managed to finish portrait of Finlay, so it all worked out in the end.
Going to avoid jars for the rest of the day though!
A glimmer of sunshine
Sunbathing with coats on, Brighton beach.
Portraiture course: week 4
Working in oils this week, with a new model.
By the end I looked like Mel Gibson in Braveheart. Note to self: less paint on me, more on the canvas.
Darks and mid-tones coming along. Next week those tricky lights!
Getting grumpier
On week three of my portraiture course I chose the challenging ‘head on’ view. Which is my excuse for why our cheery model looks so very miserable.
Ran out of time to fix that hand!
No Nudes
My faces are often a bit dodgy, so I’m doing a portraiture course (before you ask, that is the type without naked people.) Here are the results of week 1 & 2.
Why bother with Whitstable?
The Old Neptune pub, Whitstable
Why? Because it’s the finest place on the North Kent coast. Although, I will admit it’s the only place I’ve ever been to on the North Kent coast.
When I set out with the intention of sketching in Broadstairs, somewhere on the M2 I fell into a deep trance. I heard a ghostly rattle of oyster shells, the distant creek of beach hut doors, then a faint aroma of dead fish, and knew… Broadstairs would have to wait.
Mounds of empty Oyster shells rise out of the mist. Known as cultch, they are put back in the estuary, providing an ideal surface for the baby oysters to attach themselves to, helping to form new oyster reefs.
I last visited Whitstable about 10 years ago, arriving in a sleepy little fishing town and waking up to the mania of the Whitstable Oyster festival. The town has lots of hidden nooks and crannies, and some of the best bits are easy to miss, so use a map.
The sea looked so inviting on that trip, so I bought a hideous yellow speedo swimming costume from a bargain bin, only to find that the sea was ankle deep, even half a mile out.
Whitstable. Bring your own swimwear.
The cement factory. Something completely different. With beach huts.
To learn more about Whitstable, read Sarah Waters’ novel ‘Tipping the Velvet,’ there’s only a brief mention, but you may learn something new.
The Oyster festival is on between 25th and 31st July 2015.
cmoorelife 