If you, like I did, are wondering how to start learning to draw or how to take it up again, I would recommend a how-to-draw book. It sounds basic but it really works, at least for me.

The one I used, still use, and greatly enjoy is The Complete Book of Drawing by Barrington Barber.

There are many useful tips and skills imparted in this book but ones that I find particularly useful and return to time and time again are the warm-up and basic exercises (see picture to the left).

Not only have they been useful in honing my skills, but when I am having difficulty coming up with something to draw, I go back to these.

Shortly I find the creative juices flowing. Find your own Barrington,  it really does help.

If you haven’t been and you draw and paint, you should go.  It is not what you expect though.  I still recall my first art class.  It was at Candid Arts in Islington which does regular and very cheap 2 hour art classes.

They are held in a basement with a semi-circle of chairs and easels set up around the models podium.  The air is one of almost religious solemnity while everyone draws this naked person while at same time unconsciously and unanimously agreeing that this is not what they are doing.  It is an act of reverence.

Candid will sell you very cheaply materials and so there is no need to bring your own. You start with short “poses” of 5 minutes or so and work up to the longest of usually 40 minutes.  On my first visit I was proud of the result which I achieved with charcoal pencil.(top left)

If you can find a class to go to near you, then do

In this case the Independent Art School.  Theirs is an excellent business plan; an art school with no buildings.  They hire out venues, often interesting and artistically focused venues, a tutor and you turn up.

I have been going for over a year now and it was indeed it was the school that got me so interested in painting. The class that I attend is call Creative Drawing and Painting.  I had been drawing on my own for a while and wanted to learn more but in the first session was introduced to paint and I was hooked.  The main London venue Cockpit arts, an arts and craft incubator studio in Holborn, it is quite an inspiring venue for such an activity.

The class itself is two hours where you are guided through projects you select.  The one I attend has two tutors, Hugh Mendes and Gala Bell.  Both of them are enthusiastic and knowledgeable and indeed Hugh is responsible for introducing me to oil painting.

I started from the base of almost a complete beginner and I am constantly amazed how far I have come in a year.  If you are interested in taking up or improving your artistic skill then I thoroughly recommend it.  The painting at the top left is the first one I did.  The one below it, I finished just last month, almost a year to the day of my first lesson.

Fighting History is an odd exhibition at the Tate Britain.  I love the Tate Britain.  The Turner bequest is a perpetual siren song for me and they have had very excellent exhibitions before.

This one though was surprisingly odd.  I was expecting I suppose the depiction of war throughout the ages. It was not this. I am not at all sure what it was even after reading the little pamphlet they gave out. Several of the first rooms had pictures of conflict, the centre piece was large exhibit including a video that was basically the history of the miners’ strike and the final room were differing depictions of the biblical flood.

There were some very good pieces on display such as Steve McQueen’s photo of the hanging tree,  the Battle of Hastings by Allen Jones, the Death of Major Peirson by John Singleton Copley and The Deluge by Winifred Knights.  As a whole though this exhibition did not work.  It felt like they had this large installation on the miners’ strike and had bolted on an exhibition around it.  If the strike interests you then I strongly suggest you go. If not then there are other better exhibitions.

Still there are some pieces there, particularly the Allen Jones piece which I would never have seen otherwise.  And there is always the reward of the Christine Mackie installation in the free part of the museum and the chirping bird song of Oswaldo Macia’s  Something Going on Above My Head which had me entranced for a while.