Art from wordsLeave a comment

Categories and where things go

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

I don’t want to think about how long I’ve been using WordPress without a clue how it really works. I still don’t but I’m learning and via the quite unexpected route of the art course. Apparently, if I allocate a category (and who knew how those conducted themselves!), the post, instead of sitting in a little blog-post silo, will funnel readers to a whole page-worth of stuff they might never visit. At least I think that’s how it works. I’m going to tag this Art from words because I’ve just posted some more word-based art there. Update: 1. It didn’t … Continue reading Categories and where things go

Project 2Leave a comment

Part 1 Basic shapes & fundamental form

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Project 2 Exercise 1 Groups of objects. It’s a very long time since I worked with anything this size and it’s both exhilarating and alarming – the second because I feel I have much less control over what happens at the end of my arm, and the first precisely because of the second. I was trying to be tight in this first drawing, replicating my approach to smaller sized paper and so not exactly (but unintentionally, not) following the brief. Oddly, most of the items seem better drawn in the photo than they do in real life and I wonder … Continue reading Part 1 Basic shapes & fundamental form

MiscellanyLeave a comment

Routines and self preservation

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

This is mine: Domestic admin. This includes cat requirements, breakfast, and checking to see what world-grade awfulness I might be required to comment on via Facebook or Twitter. Go for a run or, if the weather is a bit feisty, a walk. [I draw the line at anything approaching apocalyptic horizontal rain or Zeus in a bad mood] Pick up the trail of social media biscuit crumbs I left earlier and that someone’s turned into explosively prevaricatory material. Lunch. Dwell on prevaricatory material. Prevaricate further by making lists. Put lists into a spreadsheet and maybe also OneNote. Add pictures because … Continue reading Routines and self preservation

art courseLeave a comment

How tall do you have to be to be an artist?

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

I’m asking because I’m currently up to the ears in A1 boards, flip charts, sketch paper, and a completely unwieldy portfolio. Art in 2018 seems to be considerably more physical than it was back in the day and I’m seriously compromised by dodgy shoulders, short arms, and inadequate legs. Not that I’m minute, I’m not. I’m of ‘average height for women’ – or I was but looking around I have a feeling that statistic may be out of date. Also, I’ve most likely reached the point where actual shrinkage is a thing. Vehicles have always been problematic with their layout … Continue reading How tall do you have to be to be an artist?

exercises, Project 1Leave a comment

Part 1 Form and gesture

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Project 1 Feeling and expression Exercise 1 Expressive lines and marks   I spent quite a long time figuring out what was required here – draw textures, rub textured items with a pencil, stick things onto the page and work with those? I did the dumb thing and drew the dead twig I’ve had in a pot for months. But it wasn’t about drawing, as such, was it? It was about making textures from textured things and experimenting with media and ways of subverting those to serve the image. I think. Top left is the neglected bit of door-frame, scratched … Continue reading Part 1 Form and gesture

exercisesLeave a comment

Part 1 Calm, anger, joy, and – hm – satisfaction?

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

This is Exercise 1 and here’s the dreaded blank sheet. First up, Anger as there’s nothing quite like chasing a cyclist down a no-cycling path for getting the grrr factor going. So that’s what using Public Service Broadcasting as background to ‘no, not a clue thank you very much’. PSB’s music is quite fast so it made for more energetic sweeps of the media, and the predictably jagged appearance of most of these is consistent with the association between word shape and perception of softness/spikiness (the Bouba/Kiki effect) which is an influence I can’t really escape very well just because … Continue reading Part 1 Calm, anger, joy, and – hm – satisfaction?

materials and miscellanyLeave a comment

Fineliners, charcoal,calligraphy pens, and a Minor Moment

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Yesterday, Amazon coughed up a roll of fineliners, a box of charcoal sticks, and three calligraphy pens and I decided to road test them. The fineliners are indeed fine, starting at 0.05 and graduating up to 0.8 but mysteriously excluding 0.7. There are two uncategorised brushes which seem the same size. I’ve not usually paid much attention to how implements work before so focusing on their handling, cornering, and tread (as it were) revealed some interesting observations. the tiniest finiest caused me to hold the pen quite firmly and make delicate, well-contained strokes. No exuberance there, it was like drawing … Continue reading Fineliners, charcoal,calligraphy pens, and a Minor Moment

art courseLeave a comment

New drawing kit and a slight trauma

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Yesterday, Amazon coughed up a roll of fineliners, a box of charcoal sticks, and three calligraphy pens and I decided to road test them. The fineliners are indeed fine, starting at 0.05 and graduating up to 0.8 but mysteriously excluding 0.7. There are two uncategorised brushes which seem the same size. I’ve not usually paid much attention to how implements work before so focusing on their handling, cornering, and tread (as it were) revealed some interesting observations. the tiniest finiest caused me to hold the pen quite firmly and make delicate, well-contained strokes. No exuberance there, it was like drawing … Continue reading New drawing kit and a slight trauma

art courseLeave a comment

The Good Student*

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

*With no apologies at all to Paul McVeigh whose book, The Good Son, is the best tale about growing up in Northern Ireland during The Troubles you’ll ever read, Man Booker Prize winners notwithstanding. On Audible, it’s even better because the man himself is reading it. So, what does it take to be a Good Student? It’s a question I’m asking myself again at the start of another course, and I’m asking it in the context of striving for that in the past and also observing student trainees of my own doing the same during their clinical placements. The related … Continue reading The Good Student*

art course3 Comments

Insightful madness

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

That’s today. Why? Because on the one hand I’m dithering over a warm-up exercise for the drawing course (a warm-up exercise!) and on the other I’m pricing up art work for the forthcoming village Christmas Fair in November. If anything says conflicted more than the fear of not being able to make temporary patterns with crumbs or water or, in my case, cold coffee, set against assigning a public value to your own paintings then I don’t want to meet it in a dark alley. Here’s the cold coffee, and if you aren’t seeing colliding galaxies, swirling star systems, and that bit … Continue reading Insightful madness