Ulster Festival of Art & Design

hello all drawers and frustrated drawers...!! Lots of great things on offer next week at Belfast's festival of Art & Design, all wonderful opportunities to meet and listen to great artists of our time. 

 I appreciate that some of them are during the day time, but if you (or your creative family member) are at school, and studying art  (or even teaching art) these events are a fantastic creative-experience-booster and worthy of seeking time out.. 

Wed 11th  March - 11am Oil painting demonstration and talk by award winning illustrator PJ Lynch    

http://www.ulsterfestival.com/pj-lynch.html

Wed 11th March - 6pm - 7pm  Talk by Katherine Tyrrell about her book on Drawing, and how to take your on-line presence from blogging to book publishing. Katherine write the UK's  no 3 art blog Making A Mark and her talk will include ways to use the internet to your creative advantage. 

http://www.ulsterfestival.com/katherine-tyrrell.html

Thursday 12th - 11 am, a panel of artists (including PJ Lynch, Set & Costume designer David Craig and Michael John Angel, founder of the Angel Academy of Art in Florence), will each talk aout their work and join in an open discussion together with the audience. This will be full of vareity and show the broad range of options within the creative field, as well as lively and fun. 

http://www.ulsterfestival.com/drawing-together.html

Thursday 12th - 7pm, a talk by Michael John Angel, founder of the Angel Academy of art, Florence. John lively and passionate speaker, and is coming all the way from Florence to share his experience with us!!  http://www.ulsterfestival.com/michael-john-angel.html

As well as this, I am holding location drawing sessions at lunch times, and a tutored life class on Saturday 14th March at 11am. This is nearly full so don't delay if you are interested in coming. Suitable for all levels, from beginner to more experienced drawers. http://www.ulsterfestival.com/julie-douglas.html

Tickets are just £6 (or £3 concession) - if you are available, I recommend these events and hope you can come along.

Julie Douglas

www.juliedouglas.co.uk

Spring Cleaning!

My new website went live yesterday, after many weeks of tweaking, writing, rewriting, scrapping, avoiding, putting too much in, taking most of it out again. 

Sorting out the mountains of information needed was a challenge to say the least, but the previous site was set up 9 years ago, so it was time for a Spring Clean.  If nothing else, technology has come  a long way since then. And so have I!

Mel's heart, from Tenby 

It's good to regroup and reflect. One thing I put on the site were photographs of some of my heart shaped stones. I have a friend in Wales, Melanie, who I taught with at London Art College. Today, after seeing my site, she sent me a very excited email saying - 

Julie, Julie! 

We took our visitor to Tenby and walked along the non pebbly beach and look what I saw! My heart for you, from Tenby :D 

Mxxxxx 

It just shows you, those hearts are everywhere!

I'd like to say thank you to Paul McNally, who loaded all the information for me. If you're ever looking for Mr Patient and Efficient Designer, he's the man! 

www.paulmcnallydesign.com

and I know there is the odd typo in there, but I need a few days away from it before I look...

                                  If you'd like a look I'd be glad that you did. It's

                        http://www.juliedouglas.co.uk

Festival of Art & Design, Belfast 2015

Festival of Art & Design 9th-14th March This year’s Festival has over 70 events – a fantastic range of talks, workshops, discussions, performances and exhibitions all about art and design. Fashion and textiles, drawing and painting, photography and animation, graphic design and illustration, architecture, sculpture, performance art……and much more Internationally renowned artists such as Axel Scheffler (Gruffalo), Sylvia Ayton (Wallis Collection), Andy Stevens (Graphic Thought Facility), Mark Wallinger (Turner Prize winner) to name but a few. Full programme at: www.ulsterfestival.com  Watch our short video: https://www.youtube.com/UUFAD-2015

Arts and Culture, Ulster University, Belfast campus, York Street, Belfast, BT15 1ED Telephone: +44 (0)28 9536 7285 |culture@ulster.ac.uk | www.culture.ulster.ac.uk
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Delicious and unique offerings for March, Belfast 2015

After the success of the Draw In Symposium last year, I was asked to create a drawing theme throughout the Ulster Festival of Art & Design, which takes place from 9th - 14th March 2015 in Belfast.
The festival comprises of many lectures, at lunch times and in the evening, from speakers from all aspects of the creative field. I have always been impressed by the quality of the speakers, no matter what their discipline and I was delighted to be asked to contribute.

Here is what I have come up with - all events take place at Belfast School of Art.

On Monday 9th, Tuesday 10th and Friday 13th March" Lunchtime Location Drawing".  I will be holding tutored sessions at 1pm for an hour.

Saturday 14th March, 11 - 1pm,  I will be teaching a tutored Life Drawing session.

Wednesday 11th March,  at 11am - award winning illustrator PJ Lynch will be delivering a talk and oil painting demonstration.

PJ Lynch oils demonstration 

Wednesday 11th March at 6pm - Katherine Tyrrell, artist, author and the UK's number 3 art blogger will be giving a talk about her new book about Drawing.

Thursday 12th March 11am - Drawing Together: a panel of artists including P Lynch, Katherine Tyrrell, set & costume designer David Craig, and Michael John Angel from The Angel Academy in Florence, will each speak about their work and answer questions from the audience and each other. This will be unique and very interesting.

Draw Together - a panel discussing the nuts and bolts of drawing practice. 

Thursday 12th March, 6pm - Michael John Angel, founder of The Angel Academy of Art, Folrence, will give a lecture entitled 'The Training of the 21st Century Realist Painter'.

Student from The Angel Academy, Florence, with his work

Bookings should be made through the festival website,
http://www.ulsterfestival.com
All sessions are subsidised and very inexpensive.

I hope you will be at as many of these sessions as possible!

For more details see the website, or email me at julie@juliedouglas.co.uk

Conkers, drawing and water colour, student work

This year was a good year for conkers. That means the trees were heavily laden, and that lots of conkers had prickly spikes. In wetter years there are fewer conkers, with no spikes,  which makes them less interesting to paint.

If you're a compulsive collector of natural things, like me, you get to know where nature performs well, so you can revisit frequently.. I am blessed that there is a conker tree at the bottom of my own garden - it kind of doesn't get better than that..

Collecting conkers can be a messy business. Lots of climbing and scrabbling in undergrowth..

(son scrabbling under the tree.. )

My students did so many wonderful drawings and paintings of conkers that I haven't room to put them all here, but I'll show you a selection. If you would like to see more student work, I am having an Open Studio in a couple of weeks, so email me and I'll send you an invitation. I am displaying portfolios of their works in progress, showing how students have progressed in their learning journey.

Nisa, student

Pat F, student

Glynis M, student - showing the benefit of attending two classes in one week, and drawing the subject twice. It really pays off to do things more than once. She did the pencil study at the bottom first, then the water colour.

Geraldine B, adding some colour pencil to the water colour.

Judith G, a lovely drawing and only her 3rd class!

Sarah B, student

Caroline, who has forgotten temporarily how much pain was involved in producing her lovely drawing..!

The art of refreshment

A poem, to Tea.

Fruity-bag-in
Fruity-bag-out
Lemon-and-ginger-bag-in
Lemon-and-ginger-bag-out
Minty-bag-in
Fruity-bag-in-no-OUT!
Green tea
Weak black tea
BUILDERS, bag OUT!!
Er... can I have coffee? With sugar...?

Such are the requests at tea time around my table. It used to be that a cup of tea was a cup of tea. Sometimes with sugar, sometimes without milk. But over the years, the herbal and fruity teas have become more popular, and in most of my classes, its rarer to have 'normal' tea. In this part of the woods, a good strong cup of tea is known as Builders Tea - you'd nearly have to mash the bag. For the builder-tea drinker, the notion of leaving the bag IN is beyond imagination..! And it's got that some of the coffee drinkers feel embarrassed to ask for coffee..

Refreshment, whatever the preference, is an important part of the drawing process. A regular break gives time for the eye to look away from the board, meaning you can look at things more freshly when you return. The walk to the kettle is good for stretching the body. My students don't get to put the kettle on (I do it for them!) so they indulge in some shoulder-rolling instead. The tea arrives and a slight break from the work arrives with it - and even though most people don't actually stop working, the cup sitting there is a small comfort, as well as a time-guide as to how far into the session we are. 

On water colour sessions, someone usually dips their brush in the cup in leau of the water jar (it's a little known fact that a tea cup is actually a MAGNET for brushes). 

After all sessions, there are those who haven't remembered to actually drink the tea as they were so absorbed in their work. Fortunately, no one has been tempted to drink from their water jar, even when the water has become temptingly fruity-coloured.. 

EHOD - location drawing in Belfast

This weekend is European Heritage Open Days and I'm holding a couple of drawing sessions in two fabulous buildings as part of that.
I always visit a site before taking students, just to make sure there are good angles and if possible, comfy seats, and to do some drawings.

 For this view, no comfy seats, but we sat on the side bar of the bus shelter (on location, an ability to adapt is vital!), which proved extra useful when it began raining.

My student friend Jayne came with me (Jayne is addicted to location drawing, good woman!) and we couldn't believe it, when we put our drawings together they almost joined up! These drawings took about 40 minutes. 

 The other location was more challenging. Huge interior, very structural with few soft edges. What to draw...?? Eventually I spotted some cast heads up by the ceiling so thought I'd challenge my eyesight and draw one of those. I have to say this is the most uncomfortable I have ever been in producing a drawing, it was a total endurance test. I was, in fact, a bit lower down than the photo shows, wedged between rows of seat. After three minutes my legs were locked and my neck was really sore. But that was nothing compared to the torture of the thumpimg of the piano tuner, on the stage below me.

I soldiered on, and was surprised when I finished to see that it had taken two hours to do the drawing. The piano tuner finished moments before I did - as I was leaving, the maintenance folks were arriving, and were beginning the hammering required to lift the flooring. I was delighted to miss THAT!

If you'd like to come and do some drawing at the weekend (don't worry, I've found a good comfy spot for students, no pain at all) please email me for details and bookings. It is free but you need to bring your own materials.

julie@juliedouglas.co.uk

National Drawing Day of Ireland, Saturday 18th May 2013

Saturday 18th May is the National Drawing Day of Ireland and I am delighted to be hosting an event in Northern Ireland. The aim of National Drawing Day is to give everyone the opportunity to draw for the sake of drawing, under the guidance of an experienced tutor.

Student drawing on location - Ulster Museum

Whether you'd like to draw for pleasure or to improve existing skills, this is a positive, fact filled fun experience for eveyone to participate in.
If you love drawing but haven't done it for years, or if you draw all the time and simply can't get enough, then why not take this opportunity to connect with the power of drawing in a hands-on workshop with me in Belfast School of Art. The event is completely free.


No matter what level you are at this workshop will help you see things in new ways and help you create drawings that serve you in design, or self expression. Numbers are limited and booking is essential.

Students drawing on location - Belfast City Hall

Sessions will be for all levels of experience, with a variety of subjects and media, learning to observe in new ways and understanding space, shape and form. Numbers are limited and booking is essential. There will be several sessions throughout the day, and students need to bring their own materials.

Students drawing at the museum

Student drawing - out the window at the Art College

If you've always fancied going to art college, this is your chance!

For full information and booking please call 07730 560 517 or email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk

(please note this is not a childrens class).