There’s less than a week to go until the opening of the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2018. The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize is the new incarnation of what used to be the Jerwood Drawing Prize. Every year I […]
Paris-based artist France Bizot receives £6,000 first prize in competition showcasing 2D and 3D artworks created in pencil, coloured pencil, pastel, graphite and charcoal.
This week’s selection of recommended shows includes: The Hayward Gallery’s new touring drawing exhibition at St Albans Museum and Gallery; magic, ritual and witchcraft at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; and the inaugural exhibition at S1 Artspace’s new gallery space at Sheffield’s Park Hill estate.
The last day of this year’s dig and there were very few people left on site. Everyone is tired as they wind down from a rather intense season. My adrenaline is seeping away and it’s difficult to think clearly or […]
Today saw all the trenches covered over with tarpaulins held down with tyres, to protect them until next season’s dig. It felt quite sad to see everything that has been revealed this year being hidden. But it has been an […]
Today was the last day that the site was open to the public. But while the last tours for visitors went round, the archaeologists were starting some serious covering up of the trenches. First with sandbags. Then tyres were rolled […]
A very different atmosphere this week all round. The weather is autumnal, i.e. cold and windy with occasional horizontal rain. Visitors are keen to engage with the Art Hut – maybe to shelter from the weather. In the trenches it’s […]
In recovery after the Open Day, so assessed the collection of pigments. It would be good to complete my ‘picture’ but there are more pressing matters during this final week. Having said that, I find my playing with pigment becoming […]
A very busy day on site. I managed one drawing of some interaction outside the Finds Hut. Nearly 300 people visited the Art Hut. So, as I needed to be around, it seemed a good opportunity to play with pigments. […]
I’ve just done this small collage/drawing made from scraps from some cutting out of leaf shapes and the shape of a Greek/Cretan bronze helmet. I put it together because of the shapes but was thinking for a while what it suggests […]
Today is the last day for many on the dig. Tomorrow (Friday) will be a day off as Sunday is an Open Day. There is an air of closing down. Trenches are being cleaned rather than dug, and areas are […]
We drove through an estate of static homes before our walk. What interesting places static-home estates are. Fascinating – but a blog for another day perhaps. It was a woodland walk again for me and Fred this morning. Woodlands being […]
As the end of the dig draws near everyone is concentrating on what is most urgent to achieve. In Trench Y, which is due to be filled in as they have not found ‘the wall’, work is focussed on the […]
Rain all day. So no good for drawing on site apart from sketching the archaeologists from the door of the Art Hut, during a wet tea break. The alternative activity was to annotate my sketchbooks, adding the date, place and […]
It has been suggested that my work on human activity at the dig should be linked to the official Ness of Brodgar documentation – specifically when I draw a find being excavated the drawing should reference the context number of […]
A day of contrary expectations and trauma. I should know better that to have any expectations of Orkney weather. Hot soup for lunch and extra clothing resulted in a fine sunny day with a mild breeze rather than fierce wind. […]
There is no wall in Trench Y. Down near the loch edge they found a large promising stone – but underneath it had a plough mark, which dates its arrival in position somewhere in the early 20th century. So the […]
The Rapture of the Archive For me this is the moment of human connection with the past – a dizzying flash of recognition that something in my life is the same as another human being long dead. My act of […]
Despite my cavalier attitude yesterday, today I made a list of things to do in the remaining two weeks. It consists mainly of portraits, which are my preferred way of having conversations with the archaeologists. Some people are shy of being […]
Week 6: only another two weeks before things start to wind down. It’s time to concentrate, to focus on important things and not get distracted by random events – or is it? Today I enjoyed seeing yet another extension to […]
