Planet Ruby Starrs

With most of the festivities over, and a Christmas tree that was practically without a single needle by Christmas day finally stripped of its motley selection of Hindu gods, Chinese new year charms and Wilkos tat I have picked up some college work again. single drawing with half pen and ink and half collage We did a drawing workshop in the last week of term and out homework was to fill in the different shapes and patterns we had made with colour.   The drawings were a collectively traced using a light box or window.  First as a single drawing and then next with a rotation of another drawing superimposed on top and further drawings in similar style layering images on top of each other to create quite abstract patterns.  three drawings layered divided into three bottom water colour with ink , middle acrylic paint, top black dot work The brief was then to divide each drawing into segments and fill each segment with a different technique - the intention to p...

Christmas has been and gone, Baby Annabels batteries are running low, we have all been operated on by Dr Little Legs and had our make up done by Big Sister... the gin bottle is looking well used and all the wholesome food has turned into chocolate!   In our house it was total chaos once we woke the children up at 8.30 (yes we had to wake them - they had been so excited the night before they didn't sleep til late)  Santa brought stockings eventually but he was too fat to get up the stairs to the attic room so he had leave them at the bottom.. he had left quite a few things downstairs under the tree - the mess within the hour was incredible ha ha - I don't think Dr Fred will do another Christmas with us his extended family - he really found the noise.... excessive wrapping paper.... total abandonment of rules... shrieking and whooping... all a bit much although he did welcome the much needed breakfast sherry!! The day was fun and given we are in a place of serious disorga...

We have finish college for the Christmas break and I feel like I have earned a little bit of down time but still seem to have loads of home work to do and thats without all the stuff I thought I might do as well!!! We got our Minor project module marks back and its safe to say I got off to a good start and now just have to keep up the good work!!! In reality I'm not doing it for the marks but being totally honest it is really nice to get a good grade and know that all the hard work and passion is recognised and noted accordingly... its a real confidence boost and very encouraging. So its on to the FINAL MAJOR PROJECT (FMP) - We have rewritten our new learning agreement and set a new action plan in place - I'm aiming for several scarf collections - all based on the imagery I have gathered and collated in the minor project - there is a lot to go at.  I have made an action plan and already I'm way off beam, I realised quite quickly that while I had a plan I needed to off l...

The other module we are doing this semester is around  Professional Development.  This includes branding, CV's, finding a job, networking, business planning and such like.... all very relevant for most of my peers but less so for myself as a mature student.  That's not to say I don't look forward to the experience though.  I do hope to set up a business later this year so much of what we do and how it might be done will be very relevant to my intended venture. The module kicked of to a great start with a presentation by Matty Bovan an established fashion designer - he does completely wonderful creations which are interesting, wacky, clever and very inspirational.    https://www.mattybovan.com/ The presentation documented his meteoric rise from Leeds College of Art to St Martins and then via Louis Vuitton back to reality setting up a fashion studio in his home town of York where he works from now producing collections which are shown at London Fashion...

And so..... the next creative stint begins..... THE FINAL MAJOR PROJECT!!!  using all the imagery I collated in the minor project module I intend to create at least 6 scarf collections - each collection having 4 designs (possibly seasonal) and 4 colour ways for each design.... I have done a plan - mapped out a vague to do list  using my never fail, 60% plan 40% to play with and I have started to consider the layouts and imagery for each collection.  I have no doubt what so ever I will completely change the whole thing half a dozen times but that's par the course and a lot of the fun.... I have been in Christmas card production mode hoping to make some cards to sell at a fair being held this weekend only they didn't work out as I wanted so will not raise funds to keep Dr Fred in mince pies this year!  They will however start a scarf design process and potentially be our personal Christmas cards once I have had time to refine them.   Meanwhile in between pa...

Now the dissertation has gone the next bit of fun starts..... There is a lot of giddy excitement in the air in out household!!! College finishing up, the recent hand ins, new projects starting, and the icing on the cake is we are moving house... better then just moving we are actually buying a house. We have loved this little house we rent at the moment - its a very pleasant space to live in but the village is not what we had hoped it would be and we feel very isolated and quite frankly the neighbors are not what we are used to.  Yes we were very spoiled when we lived in Northumberland - the community there embraced newcomers and was interesting to live with - we made lifelong friends, so moving here to a similar set up was disappointing to say the least and we have never really settled.  So we have been looking at alternatives. That said this is still a bolt from the blue - an unexpected happening in our lives - Dr Fred and I have vaguely discussed this option as we want...

The dissertation is finished...  it took me ages to do all the detail stuff Harvard referencing ect... the simplest tasks were starting to drive me mad!! I cant believe how long it took me to work out how to number pages excluding the first two pages aagghhhh...  I suppose I should be grateful that its not like the olden days where you had to get it typed and bound before hand in - this essay has been a hard slog, a subject which I felt was interesting - how the digital explosion is ruining traditional creative methods turned into a fairly unexciting - pretty boring unexceptional topic!  there will never be a next time but my advice is think of something funky - does Danny Boyle like garden Gnomes - Racoon meets Lady Gaga - anything that might surprise you but not too grown up!! I have worked hard and will be rewarded with a mid grade because there is no passion in this essay - the hard slog is evident as is the lack of enthusiasm - C'est la vie you cant win them all....

Its only a couple of days to my first hand in of the year and I've been making myself do all the fiddly little bits that I always leave to the last minute.  All the labeling of my resources and tidying up the sketch book, bibliography referenced the right way - all the boring bits but the devil is in the detail!!! old and new buildings - line drawings exposed on a cyanotype base My head is still spinning with ideas as usual but I need to do the essentials first and then if I have time in the next couple of days I may add some extra work if it can be executed to the necessary standard.  The really good thing about this module is that it mainly about producing a body of work and imagery to develop in the next module grandly known as the Final Major Project - FMP  for short - so we can keep adding and developing ideas. red gladioli in a tall blue vase, found paper collage on black paper I've done quite a bit of collage this time, I love cutting and sticking and fi...

pic by Hilary indeed it was a stormy night... worse than had been forecast - and on the strength of the weather forecast we headed up to the Durham Lumiere... but it rained and rained and the queues were long and it was very busy .. still great fum and as it was the 10th anniversary they had brought back a lot of my favorites from 4 years ago. This included the whale jumping in the river and the fabulous projection on the castle.  I have to admit the new stuff was interesting but still wasn't as effective as some of the older revisiting shows.  I did however love the giant snow globe and found the tunnel of light simple but really effective. We didn't get into the cathedral - we started to queue but realised after hardly any movement in 20 mins it was going to be a long haul - in the rain so we escaped and didn't bother to return.   We had the obligatory pint in Dr Freds old local the Victoria and very nice it was - still not changed at all and still ...

Before we hit the Lumiere we visited the Oriental museum and it was a very pleasant experience.  Full of interesting objects and for the most well labeled so lots of information.  there were lots of little interesting artifacts from the orient although I have to admit that Mummies really spook me - I don't know why - too many hammer horror films I suspect but while lots of things don't bother me this idea of embalmed trussed up bodies doesn't appeal to me at all. porcelain Chrysanthemum bowl by Hosoni Hitomi

Photo montages - the way forward digitally at the moment!!!  I had my formal tutorial at Uni and got on the whole positive feedback but a bit of a doublehander with an observation made that I have an excellent portfolio of primary photographs, varied interesting and relevant but I'm not using them enough!!!  So I decided to play with photo montage and manipulation on PS this is 6 different photographs taken all on the same day on a beach in Galloway First problem I ran into is that my computer is too old and low spec to run my newly repurchased most updated version of Photoshop!!!! So a new computer will arrive later today.   This is a minor setback as I have been meaning to upgrade my lappie for a couple of months and this just kicked me into action.  What it did mean though was I lost some valuable time last week being unable to work from home and as I was a bit under the weather I didn't make it into college.... C'est la vie I'll make it up.. Unseen...

Another lovely weekend spent with stargazing enthusiasts at Ninebanks Youth Hostel, eating cake, cooked breakfasts, 3 course dinners - all to fuel Dr Freds lectures on the cosmos and as the weather permitted some serious stargazing late into the night. It was cold though - astronomy is not for the fainthearted, under dressed, or a  cosy fire comfort lover, so if I'm honest I didn't do a lot of actual stargazing.... I did step outside for a look at the milky way as it was pretty spectacular but then I put myself in charge of keeping the wood burner burning and the kettle on!!! Nine banks Youth Hostel is a very nice place to stay, it has some private en-suite rooms and a couple of  'chalets' which are self catering if you want total privacy.  It sits in the  Mohope valley of West Allendale  and has spectacular views out the front while being snuggled into the side of the hill.  the owners are helpful and friendly and the communal bits of the building are ...

More life drawing - this time a class at eh Hartlepool Art Gallery - great experience and practice. ; lots of 5 min poses and a few 15 minute ones - 10 drawings in 2 hours after a full day at college my back ached from leaning over drawing!!!

I hope the new look blog is behaving itself ... please let me know if its not!  I think you can now subscribe to get email reminders again - I seemed to have lost that button before and hopefully it doesn't jump about as you read it! I've been colouring in.  This beetle is from a photograph I took in the Natural history Museum.  I used the photograph, cropped it, enlarged it and then using Photoshop I digitized it until it was just the bare 'bones' leaving me a lovely image to play with. . Its been a quieter week at college - I have been consolidating my work and reflecting on what I have got and where to go next.   I have complied a large file of resource inspiration, some of it primary photographs, collated artists that inspire me and some market research about my potential target audience.  this file is a work in progress as I add to it all the time as inspiration hits me but a lot of it is made up of photographs from my travels and gallery visits...

This return to college is catching up with me, my initial enthusiasm remains but the getting out of bed and facing rush hour traffic is starting to pall slightly - I've never been a morning person and at 7.00 in the morning as the mornings grow chillier and darker I can find more and more excuses to stay warm and cosy under the duvet!! So today was a late start but eventually quite productive as I struggle on with the ever on going dissertation scenario.  No one will be as pleased as me to see it reaching its conclusion and almost final word count of words that have some semblance of usefulness and  the feeling I have something worth handing in.  Its not going to be a nobel prize winner and its not making any amazing discoveries but it will do the job and allow me freedom to place my energies into the rest of my creative work. Don't get me wrong I have mostly enjoyed some of the dissertation experience, mainly the reading.  I am a voracious reader but its mainly ...

Second life drawing class was slightly daunting - tasked with drawing figure, getting some semblance of lighting and skin effects and including detail of the room!!! I didn't think I would be able to do it if I'm honest but it came together in the end - not bad for a beginner.  Charcoal on A1 paper.

Back to reality and art works.... At college today I had the chance to take part in a life drawing class.  This came about because I had been chatting to my tutor about how I would like to try life drawing but would prefer a 'guided'lesson type thing as I have never done if before.  Sometimes life drawing is part of our curriculum but not this year, so, star that she is she negotiated for me to be allowed to join a couple of sessions with fine art students. Big paper, easels, charcoal.... all very different to surface design experiences but great fun and very informative - the lesson was based on finding skeletal structure and weight bearing limbs so final figure would be in proportion and grounded - looking stable and hopefully like a figure!!! I really enjoyed it and look forward to the next session later this week and I was very pleased with my efforts given I'm a beginner!

Regular readers and those of you that know me will know this blog is supposed to be about my art work and what inspires me - which in fact, is most things.... beauty and inspiration can be found everywhere  so this blog often digresses allover the place - life gets in the way - throws opportunities, lemons, beautiful sunsets and occasionally really dramatic events - yes we've had a few of those lately but this week we realised that is was 20 years to the day when Dr Fred my trusty sidekick - who puts up daily with my 'inspirational' life - had his most dramatic event and how he survived.... it makes grueling reading and its why I need to know what time to call mountain rescue when he goes off on some of his jaunts!! He wrote this account 4 weeks after the event and hasn't looked at for a long time it until yesterday when we both read it and felt ill, relieved and thankful he is still here to read it!!! This was an event that happened before I met Dr Fred but that does...