• After I was hacked and rebuilt my website, I decided not to host my blog on my site anymore, as that seemed to be where they gained access to my database. I decided to host my blog with wordpress.com.

    This brings you closer to the wordpress community. Almost as soon as I was online again, I saw a link to National Blogging Month. It wasn’t really a blogging month it was a piece encouraging bloggers to write something everyday for a month. I took up the challenge. I’ve been doing pretty well. But now I think it is getting in the way of proper work. I’m going to try a new challenge.

    This is my third entry today. I’m going to see if I can not blog everyday!

  • Drawing is how we explain things in pictures. It is a language we seem to be able to read and write instinctively without any formal training.

    As soon as a child can hold a crayon, it is mesmerised by the marks it makes. It grows up joyfully interpreting the world through drawing and colouring in.

    Around about the age of eleven, the act of drawing gets confused with the business of Art, style and criticism. Just when students could do with some encouragement and formal training in technique that will help them progress their drawing skills, they give up drawing and drawing becomes part of the Art syllabus.

    They should carry on drawing, not as artists but as mathematicians, scientists, geographers historians and linguists. The act of drawing switches off the left side of the brain sending the drawer into a state of flow, so necessary for those leaps of imagination that we call creativity. Drawing is a training exercise for the right side of the brain.

    All day long we force right brainers to learn language and sequencing techniques – how strange is it that we do not offer the complete exercise and training of the brain as standard?

    Drawing is a universal language that crosses all barriers and boundaries. If you can’t read Japanese, the chances are you could decode a Japanese manga comic from the pictures and have a pretty good idea of the story.

    The saying goes, “a picture tells a thousand words.” Every institution of power knows this truth and uses it ruthlessly. Why then do we gag ourselves? Why do we say,”I’m rubbish at drawing,”?

    Because we confuse Drawing with Art. Drawing is something everyone can do, and I mean everyone.

    You would not expect a room of adults to be writing Japanese at the end of one lesson, but you can bring a smile to their faces with just one drawing lesson. Better than that, you can get them to produce a piece of work that surprises them, that they can be proud of and happy to show to their friends and family. Sometimes they are so excited you cannot stop them!

    Like learning Japanese, it takes practice and technique to get better.

    We don’t teach drawing technique anymore because the artistic establishment has become sacred of influencing artistic style. But if someone doesn’t want to be an artist, who cares? At art college, my lecturers refused to show me any techniques – they didn’t want to spoil my natural style – I didn’t have any, because I’d never been taught any technique. However, they didn’t mind it when I taught them techniques I’d learned as a commercial artist, signwriter and mapmaker before I went to college!

    Drawing is not an art – it is a skill that can be learned. Like any other skill it takes practice and perseverance. It’s benefits far out way the effort put in.

  • They all look grim under the orange sodium lights. None of the jolly, TV antique people here. This lot are out for a bargain, jaws set hard against the opposition – this is a battle of wits and determination. Anyone of those faces could be bidding against you, so don’t show any emotion.

    You can spot the newbies, getting all excited and fidgeting as their lot number comes ever closer. They leap in with a bid too high and allow themselves to be pushed beyond the limit they’ve set themselves. Often, as I saw this morning, they are amazed to have won their item. The auctioneer commented, “Yes! You won!” Their round, shiny, country faces beamed.

    It’s a bull ring – most of the time it is livestock that is bought and sold here. All sorts crowd in – the country squire type, the mousey ladies, the neck-tattooed ex-cons, the wheelers and the dealers, the collectors, the car boot sellers, some. I think, come for company and the occasion.

    The stuff in the bullring looks a lot like tat, mostly because of the setting, but get it back home, polish it up a bit and there are interesting things to be had. I nearly got sidetracked into bidding for a folding case of butterflies – or lepidoptera, as the auctioneer informed his amused audience.

    At ten o’clock the auctioneer makes a solemn progress towards his podium, ringing an old school handbell drawing all the stragglers to start of the sale. It’s an almost religious procession. He belts through the lots. Some of it must be fairly good. He goes over £100 a few times and gets over £200 for a cast iron garden table.

    Then my number’s comes round. No bids. “Someone give me five.” I flash my card – he sees another movement first. I get in at eight. It goes to ten… twelve… I come in again at fifteen. I’m considering wether to go any higher when the gavel comes down and I’m the winner.

    A pair of tatty, japonaise style cane tables. One will fit perfectly in the space my daughter has reserved for a bedside table. We’ve been looking for something that size for a while.

    I get it home, clean it up with vinegar and water. It’s not quite as bad as thought. With a little polish, it looks okay next to her bed, be-lamped and covered with bedside table bit and pieces. I take a photo and send it to my daughter who is away for a couple of days.

    The phone rings – a happy girl on the line. “You got it!” she squeals.

    It was worth the effort.