I am a planning maniac and a time management freak - in recovery. I've been in recovery for quite some time, but it is an uneven road. For example, it means that this week I put on my weekly plans to forget about my plans :) I do try my best to let go of my attempts to have full control of my days, but I need my support group, so I read literature on the subject and listen to podcasts, too. This week, I even went further and went to an in-person event to meet an author whose books I recommend and gift often: Oliver Burkeman. Apart from several best-selling books Oliver Burkeman has a Newsletter too. His main message is deceptively simple: it is not humanly possible to do everything you want to do, and you have a very limited amount of time, so you need to choose what it is that you want to do and actually do it - today. I listened to the talk while drawing people around me. It was an hour well spent.
I would like to introduce you to one of my art heroes: Mary Fedden. This is an artist whose work I discovered this year, and it opened many other doors for me, spiraling out into articles, books, videos, and changing the way I think about several projects that I began, and now setting me on a new path. I am fascinated with her use of color, how she blends subjects and simplifies things, views, and space. How she works with the surface, how fresh and open her work is.
Mary Fedden was an artist who lived and worked in Britain. During World War II, Fedden worked in the Land Army and then for the Women's Voluntary Service, before being called up to serve as a driver in the NAAFI in 1944. Her artistic career spanned many decades before and after the war, and it overlapped with many very interesting artists, one of whom happened to be her husband, printmaker Julian Trevelyan (JT works means Julian Trevelyan, all the other works in this post are Mary Fedden - from the books mentioned below)
I was able to get my hands on a couple of books to look at her works - one of them, "Mary Fedden: Enigmas and Variations," is now in my collection (thank you for the great birthday present, you know who!), and is filled with many color reproductions of her works. The second book, "Mary Fedden and Julian Trevelyan - Life & Art by the River Thames," is filled with interesting works by Julian Trevelyan (see below) but, most importantly, contains quite a few pages from Mary Fedden's Travel sketchbooks!
Mary Fedden lived to be 96 (here is her obituary in the Guardian from 2012), and I see some of her works online dated 2010. That is truly one of the longest painting careers - though my other art hero, David Hockney, is definitely working on similar results!
There are different ways to learn, and one of them for me is watching people paint - seeing their brushstrokes and choices - without any commentary. Though the commentary in this video is rather interesting too: her love for gouache, working in series, and drawing in a sketchbook everywhere she goes are things that I definitely relate to.
An interesting article to read more about Mary Fedden:
Mary Fedden: the pleasures of life after privation and loss
I was invited to a wonderful book reading event this Friday.
The title of the book is "WHY IS THE MOON FOLLOWING ME?" by Emer Martin (Author), Suzana Tulac (Author), Magdalena Zuljevic (Illustrator).
It's an easily-rhymed, fun read for kids from 5 to 12, it's cleverly educational and filled with smart, whimsical illustrations!
As Emer did some reading and talking to kids, Magi drew mice with audience, I managed to sketch few scenes - below :)
You can learn more about this book at www.moonfollowing.com and order it on Amazon.
