Miró

I had an opportunity to visit the Tate Modern Miró exhibition last Sunday. As a member, it was no trouble to get in anytime I wished.  I want to say a lot about the assembled collection of sketches and paintings, but to be honest - just like when I visited the Gaugain exhibition at the same venue - the selection was too vast to take in :( in one sitting anyway.

I was impressed with his early works, the paintings "House With Palm Tree" and "Vegetable Garden and Donkey", both painted in 1918 - Miró was already confident to use a stylistic approach in depicting allotment rows and cloud formations that echoed the tilled land (or is that awry perspective containing water courses?)

 "The Rut" executed in the same year courses with energy.

A year later "Mont-roig, the Church and the Village" includes buildings reflecting brilliant sunshine above lush greenery.

By 1921 and exemplified in "The Farm", he used repeated motifs and increased symbolism to fill his canvas.

I was overwhelmed by the time I got to his preparatory pieces for the "Head of the Catalan Peasant" (1925).  Still time to return before it ends, September 11th 2011.

May Day!

Such a busy day, such glorious weather. We are truly fortunate.

Started at Redland Green Fair, with the intention of sketching the proceedings, but it was too busy...  The pollen from the trees had me choking, sneezing and coughing, so I moved on to catch the RWA Robert Lenkiewicz exhibition again, this time armed with pencils and paper.

I wanted to examine how he represents eyes.  I started with 'Richard Holding William Blake's Death mask' (2002).

I worked for a long while trying to reproduce the tones in graphite, but there is something not quite right with it.  I still maintain that when you produce a 2D image of a 2D original, it's going to look flat.

I moved on to the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery - they really should shake up the paintings. They've the same ones up for decades, I think.  Haven't they got an archive they can delve into?  Am I being naïve?

While the sun still shone, I climbed up to Brandon Hill and sketched a group preparing a barbecue (is that breaking the law?) under a tree on the slope leading to Great George Street.

Always behind people - do you recognise a pattern forming?