At the end of August, I was asked by Frome Town Council to record a visit to the town by the Academy Of Urbanism. What the Council had in mind was a series of sketches that could be presented to the Academy as a memento of their visit; one that might persuade them to…
"O please, gentlemen... that is a deep violet, please, depend on it! Not so rose!"- Franz Liszt conducting his orchestra in Weimar in 1842. Like Bernstein, Beethoven and Rimsky-Korsakov, Liszt was a chromaesthete and experienced a rare form of synaesthesia (a…
Jenny Holzer's solo exhibition at Hauser and Wirth, Somerset is predominantly about sex, war and death; a potent and often harrowing combination that the artist seems to treat somewhat at a distance with her trademark text-based work and minimalist aesthetic. Nevertheless, as you walk through the…
The aim of my Pencil To Paint course is to explore the essential differences between the two disciplines and shed light on why many of us find it so difficult to move between the two. I meet many skilled draughtsmen and women who…
For the more jaundiced amongst us, the phrase Adult Education might conjure up images of a cheerless school classroom, repurposed for half-a-dozen lovelorn grown-ups with a feigned interest in lampshade-making. The last place they'd think of would be somewhere like Dillington House; a Somerset County Council-owned Adult…
Last weekend, Frome Sketchers visited Hauser & Wirth Somerset, a brave and bold addition to Iwan Wirth and Manuela Hauser's stable of international art galleries. What's different about this venture, however, is the breadth of the couple's vision. Not only is the…
I've just returned from seven fantastic days at Studio Paradiso in a secret location, beyond Carrara, where every town and village perches on its own wooded slope and Michelangelo's white marble gleams like snow on the mountains.
After a slow morning at the villa, sketching in the sunshine, we drove to Marsala to the Florio family winery, where we discovered that the legendary dessert wine comes in many other guises too. Besides wine, Florio's stylish shop also sells ceramics, preserves,…
With the exertions of Selinunte still fresh in our minds, we took the morning off to visit nearby Castelvetrano. After coffee and a highly restorative bout of shopping, followed by a magnificent lunch of last night's leftovers, (refreshed…