I really enjoyed this interview with Nastasia of The LondonY. Effectively someone else asking many of the questions I should ask of myself and causing me to have a good look at what’s going on in my art, life and music.
What I do, and why,
and how.
Don’t know about ‘upcoming’, but wherever I’m at, I’m happy here for now : )
Blanche Ellis talks art, folk and how to portray people on the train without getting noticed.
Read the full interview on the LONDONY website here
well – it’s been a short while but i’ve made enough sketches that i thought i’d set them out them by theme for a change…
The largest collection is of Travel Portraits, mostly from the London Underground and Overground. So I’ll start with just a few of those. Trying a new – non-gallery format – let me know if you like it better !
I think this is my favourite TFL sketch so far.
It captures hundreds of identical moments I see watching people every day – the commuter all bundled up for winter and tucked into a sensationalist free paper whose headline blares absurdly from the crinkled front page.
The two guys from this page look like they’re from totally different centuries.
Imagined journey –
Lady on the late train back to Brockley from London Bridge, fellow on a train from Hove to London.
Newspaper headlines, brands and names of supermarkets on shopping bags are written all over public space, part of the markings of our world.
Sometimes they seem to make a visual point, I can’t always work out what it is, and don’t want to pin it down, but I like to include these things where they strike me as interesting or often, as amusing or absurd in some way.
A friend also sent me this excellent cartoon about drawing in public – it’s from New York.
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Some other posts coming up will be on exhibitions I’ve been to (Shiele/Turner)…
drawings of live music….
and a new series that has been emerging in this sketchbook…
Train Window
I’m only half way through this sketchbook but i’ve got lots of images to share from it already. A lot of them are portraits, including those done on the London Underground/Overground – so if you’re a Londoner there’s a tiny chance you’ll find your own picture. If you’re part of my friends and family there’s a much greater chance. I’ve decided to make a portraits page on this site as I do so many.
I’d also like to make a small note about the lovely sketchbooks which I have been working in lately. They’re from a little french company called Alibabette, personal and friendly with charming designs (i’m quite fussy with designs on my sketchbooks – I generally prefer them plain) and I really recommend them. The covers are paper, so they do get grubby but I don’t mind that in the least as beat-up old looking things only increase in beauty to me. The paper is creamy and thick enough to take watercolour, though the colour of the pages dulls the paints a little. They have lots of sketchbooks but ‘Artbooks’ are 200 pages and, in my opinion, make a great journal.
Tom – UpThinking
Blanche Ellis 