Year: 2015

Wind in the trees. Two boys come and watch me draw. ‘Thats braw. Eh’m doing art at school and I want tae go tae Dundee art school’, said one. The other boy said,  ‘Nah, its footba’ fae me, jist footba’. They grin and run off. I chat to a woman about the place getting cleaned up and a council man walks by picking up the rubbish wondering what there is to draw here. Then a man comes over and tells me of his childhood spent playing at the burn, about his own artwork and hyper dimensional torsion field physics (I had to write that one down ). That was unexpected.

Bus shelter, cool, cloudy Thursday morning. The air is ruffled by passing lorries so I hastily stick down my drawing. Three little girls all dressed in pink. A boy stares at the drawing critically for a long time and walks on. Meet a woman from Edinburgh. She fell in love and had moved to Monifieth. Her son was doing a PhD in Patent Law. Number 15 buses every 10 minutes into the city centre. They stop, thinking I want to get on and I point to the paper stuck on the bus shelter walls. I smile apologetically. Man on a skateboard, dogs and bikes along the burn. Graffiti under the bridge.

Greetie, dreep, a morning smirr. Mixed media on wood. 30x20cm

frogs and swallows and brown butterflies in the afternoon sun.

A cool, sun in and out of the clouds morning. Feeling alone but I forget myself in drawing. Meet a man who showed me pictures of the kingfisher on the burn and told me about the wild mink and Travellers at the back of Sainsburys. Neither appeared welcome. Had some thoughts about an outdoor experimental drawing class – wondering if anyone would be interested….? A quiet, thoughtful morning.

This morning was spent building a nine hole golf course in the woods at the back of Iceland. We had pallets to tee off from and empty paint tins for holes. It sounds rubbish but it is brilliant. We played a few of the holes, Stuart being crowned champion, with myself a close second  – not sure how ! Anyway, its there for anyone to find and see if they can figure it out. Theres talk of an annual Dighty Cup, but then again……

   

Jane, Stuart, Alistair, Catherine, Joe, Ryan and Trev.

Acrylic, gesso, conte pastel and charcoal on Evening Telegraph July 3rd 2015. Title- ‘Bobs half price sale’ from the newsprint in painting.

Baldovie Incinerator, Dundee. Ended up drawing on lots of sheets of paper, as the shapes of the structure grew and grew in the hot morning sun. Forgot to put on suncream and my face burning. Lorry driver laughing at my attempts to keep the drawing under control. In the way of the Council grass cutting machine as it chewed up the grass and the litter behind me.

Drawing along the burn at Douglas, the Incinerator in the background. Thundery rain wetting the paper, wind picking up.

 

A Buddha in the burn,

now that’s a funny thing to find

amongst

roman coins and tudor buttons.

Ben Sherman shirts and galluses,

a red handkerchief in your pocket.

He’s studying dentistry,

she, sensitivity,

finding it hard not to laugh

at metal detecting someones head…

bzzzzzz…….

Now thats a treasure.