Portrait Drawing Workshop at Alfred East Gallery

Just a quick update on a very successful portrait drawing workshop at Alfred East Gallery https://www.kettering.gov.uk/artworkshops . This was a group of varying abilities who produced some great work.  What was particularly satisfying was to see everybody’s work develop. Moreover, to see students with very little drawing experience really get to grips with developing a portrait was very rewarding.

In the same vein as my other portrait workshops https://www.cordellgarfield.com/workshops/  the portrait drawing workshop set out to really help beginners. Above all portrait drawing and its anatomy are difficult to master and I tried to simplify the process. We approached the drawing through understanding the landmarks of the face. This could be the position of the eyes, distances between the eyes, nose and mouth and so on.

I wanted to give a big shout out to the Alfred East Gallery following the workshop. The Alfred East Gallery hosts a range of art based workshops over the year with something for everyone, and I would recommend keeping an eye on what’s available. I will be looking to run another workshop at Alfred East Gallery in the future, but I would recommend checking out other courses.

Drawing workshop Alfred East Gallery
Drawing Alfred East workshop Oct 2019
Drawing Alfred East Gallery
Drawing Alfred East workshop Oct 2019

 

 

‘Ship of Fools’ – Painting can be a laugh

Sometimes it’s fun just to create a painting that’s a bit of a laugh. I started to paint this one with poking fun in mind, particularly the pompous Tory crowd on this boat just about to go over the edge of a waterfall.

The painting loosely inspired by Bosch’s painting ‘Ship of Fools’ http://www.hieronymusbosch.net/ship-of-fools/ and gives a big nod to the works of James Gilray and John Heartfield. In their time all these artists were capable of sending up the establishment and the rich and powerful.

Whatever your political stance the art of wit, humour, sense of the ludicrous and general lampooning should never be lost, and for me this is what this painting has recreated.

This painting is on show at the Alfred East Art Gallery, Kettering until 26th May 2018 if you want a closer look.