Exhibitions at Birmingham (part two) - Victorian Radicals

The other exhibition we saw while in Birmingham was Victorian Radicals at the City Museum and Gallery.  There are some really good stills of the exhibition on the site and much better photos than mine!  This exhibition again featured Pre-Raphaelite paintings and drawings, but also ceramics, sculpture, enamels, jewellery, stained glass, textiles and clothes, from the Victorian age. Above is Paolo and Francesca by Alexander Munro.

This small ink drawing is King Arthur and the Weeping Queens by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  Again, being able to get up close meant we could see so much detail.

This is a sketch for a textile design by William Morris and it was beautiful.  

One of William's daughters, May Morris, was a skilled embroiderer and ran the embroidery department at Morris and Co. for some time.  Her embroidery is featured on this dress.

You can see it a little more clearly here.

This necklace was much brighter in real life.

A sketch of a boy used in Rossetti's The Beloved.  The painting is in the Tate here.

'The Last of England' by Ford Madox Brown is full of details, from the cabbages hanging at the front, to the children with their mother behind the main couple and the child inside the mother's shawl.  Apparently the pink ribbons took the artist four weeks to paint.

Kate Bunce's 'The Keepsake' featured the most stunning dress materials although you can't really see them that well in my photo. 

I do like the Persian pottery of William de Morgan - all those lovely blues!  (The 'Medea' by his wife was featured in the Scent exhibition in my previous post).

Wouldn't these tiles look lovely in a bathroom or kitchen?

This exhibitions showcased some wonderful work by some very talented artists and craftspeople.  I was really pleased to have seen it and it was well worth the entrance price (£11.00).   The people we met in Birmingham were really helpful, (particularly when we had gone the wrong way to the train station) and were very friendly too.

Artistic endeavours

Back in March 2020, before the world changed, the powers that be at work decided we should have 'Wellbeing Wednesdays' all through March.  Lots of different activities were on offer, for both students and staff and I signed up for ceramics/pottery, which was an open session over lunchtime.  I went with a colleague and we had a great time.  She made a vase, while I started off smaller with some decorations, using biscuit cutters.  We added any patterns we wanted and then returned the next week to glaze them.  The lovely art technician had fired them in the intervening time.  I decided on white or clear glaze for the hearts...

...and the most gorgeous blue/green glaze for the sun, stars and moon, (which is much nicer in real life than the photos would have us believe) which I had left unpatterned.  This was my first attempt at glazing and the gentle painting activity was very enjoyable.  

I made one sun into a sunflower, which had to be yellow, of course.  These were then fired and given back to me.  Buoyed with my success, I planned a more ambitious project of a ceramic running hare, with impressed patterns on it and glazed in white, blues and greens.  I had also planned to make some gemstone dangles to add to it. I worked diligently on the design and found the stamps to make the patterns.  I turned up to work, looking forward to that day...only to find the campus was being closed, we had to gather our things and go home.  I have been working from home ever since. My hare remains in plan form and one day I hope to make it, but not at the moment.  I could make it in polymer clay, so that may be a possibility.

However, I have now started some of the activities from my Wanderlust 2021 course.  Above is a loose watercolour mandala design, which started out as circles drawn with a compass and just developed as I went along, after having watched a video.  I really enjoyed creating this as it was so meditative and just gently grew. I started off with the watercolour sections and then added the pen drawing a circle at a time.

 I added some glitter to a few areas.  I am going to make some more of these, I think, using some of my metallic gouache.

Moroccan market

Last week there was a Moroccan Market in Lincoln High Street and Chris and I visited on the last day, Saturday.  There were a lot of metalwork teapots, lanterns, leather bags, slippers and jewellery, but it was the textiles that really appealed to me.  We did ask the stall holder's permission before taking the photos.

 I just loved the colours of these scarves - silk and velvet apparently - "and all hand woven".  The stall holders were very persuasive and  managed to persuade us to buy two things - more of those later.

 The patterns on the bowls were really beautiful.

The ceramic and metalwork bowls were particularly fascinating - intricate patterns and metalwork applied on the top.

 Then there were a couple of rug stalls where the pattern and colours almost exploded out onto a rather dull May day.

 This rug reminded me of a lovely patchwork.  Some of the squares were raised, which gave a contrast of textures.  If only I had had the money...

 It really brightened our day.

 You can see the raised areas in the design more clearly here.

 So what did we buy?  Chris bought this lovely ochre bowl with hand painted decoration and I went for a pink striped scarf.

What a fantastic market, full of exotic colours and textures.