Planet Ruby Starrs

The next chapter begins ... A glorious Monday morning. Masses of house martins whizzing round the house welcoming the sunshine.  A jolly good morning sent to my lovely girls to make sure they are out of bed, my school bag packed and raring to go- and on the road to college... some very pretty meadows strewn down the central reservation of the A689 and the odd roundabout on the way to Hartlepool making for a scenic journey. First week nerves kicked in a bit, but all in all it has been a very productive and interesting week. There are a small number of new students joining the year twos in the textile class, six newbies from various places - 3 of us from Newcastle - all with foundation degrees but needing to resit our second year as this is a requirement for the Northern School of Art.  This isn't a problem for me as I just want to do this for as long as I can so an extra year is actually a bonus for me! Our first week is aimed at introducing the new direct entry stu...

possibly a Scarlet Ibis lost in the grey wilds of Northumberland Inspired by the museum archive exhibits I decided to spend some time drawing Scarlet Ibis's - Birds are harder then you think to draw... sometimes they just work and other times it is incredibly difficult to capture the shape properly - unless obviously you are particularly good with birds!!! Yesterday I had a lazy day just making line drawings of Scarlet Ibis - the whole bird, bits of the bird, its feet, its silhouette - getting the curve of the beak was quite challenging, these birds are incredibly elegant - long legged and haughty not only because of their wonderful scarlet plumage but they have a serious regal attitude - and I was looking at different ways to convey this... We saw lots of ordinary Ibis in Sydney Australia, they were very common just hanging out on the streets by the Botanical gardens - I found them hard to draw then!! Scarlet Ibis in native greenery After drawing I picked my favouri...