Comments on: The Saturday Morning Drawing Club Resumes

By: Cathy

Cathy — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:58:49 +0000

Hey K! That is soooooo FABULOUS!!!! I truly wish I’d been there! Checked out the Tate St Ives and saw Rose’s beautiful painting. Good for her! And all of us! No one can hold a spirited girl down for long. I think we need a book where we all tell our stories accompanied by a piece of our art. Thanks, mdf. I just cracked up when I read it.:)))

Will think of a drawing exercise you can do too…You are part of the club!! When you next come to Boston you can be guest teacher!

By: KT

KT — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:38:45 +0000

mdf. Well done. I so wish I could be in your club. Could I maybe have a exercise now and then to play with??

This weekend the town was dedicated to my friend the artist Rose Hilton. Rose is in her mid 70’s and lives in an unheated cottage on the edge of a cliff in Botallack Moor, a few miles from Pz. Tate St Ives celebrated her with a retrospective opening on Sat night, followed by a show of drawings here in town on Sat. Her work is all wacky figurative and beautifully painted. (Tate St Ives/google). The drawings thrilled me the most…so free and expressive, mostly in either pastel or pen and ink, some just scratched out in less than a minute.

Rose was turned out head to toe in a full length slinky blk patent leather fitted coat dress (the only way I can describe it) and a massive blk leather dog collar piece with studs. Not her usual style but she allowed her girlfriend from art school to dress her. Anyway she looked stunning as if just stepping off the set of The Matrix! This is all leading somewhere….. Rose raised 2 boys while being married to a v. abusive husband who declared there was to be only one painter in the family…HIM. He was Roger Hilton. And it wasn’t until Roger died of alcohol when Rose was in her 50’s that she took up the brush again.

So come on girls! Let it rip!

By: Cathy

Cathy — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:48:45 +0000

Hi Julie! Thanks for sharing!! I think artists all struggle with this at some point. At first we are trying to get the skills to have things look as they are. That just takes practice but, in truth, a drawing is just marks on paper and they are beautiful in their own right. It’s pretty cool just to be where we are with our drawings, see what’s there and go in the direction of what pleases and excites. And it’s extra cool to just draw for the sake of it without product in mindâ€”to really explore!
I will continue to share the story project!! Keep checking in and sharing your stories too!Â I’m so interested to hear your take on things!!

By: Julie Stiles

Julie Stiles — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 04:29:41 +0000

I’m awed and fascinated by your perspective — coming from years of making a living as an artist yet not, as you say, knowing much about things like perspective. When I first began painting a couple of years ago, I struggled with the whole issue of trying to make my paintings look a certain way. I’ve managed to get to a more balanced approach with painting, but now that I’m focused more on drawing (because I wanted to learn to draw “better”), I find I’m in the same dilemma: wanting my drawing to look like the object, or to look like what I have in mind, or to at least look like something. It’s such a challenge, and also a gift, to be able to just let things be what they are, as they appear on the page, and not get caught in judgments, positive or negative.

And I hope you keep sharing the process you take the club through around the story project…I’d love to explore from afar!