In my youth.

Yes it's me again already, after I left you yesterday I was very brave and ventured into the loft to look for some craft stamps. I say 'brave' because the sound of the wind in the attic was bad enough but under the eves in the loft it was even worse but needs must and all that. Anyway there I was on my knees in the loft scrabbling around in boxes when I came across my old sketch books from my time at art college some 25 years ago.

Well sketch books are just like old photo albums, once you find them you can't help but open them up and take a look and before you know you've lost an hour or two!

I only attended art college for a year doing a foundation art course and lodged away from home with a friend from school.
I was always sketching, usually in pencil and always portraits from pictures in magazines.

Colour wasn't really my thing. This one was done with watercolour pencils.

I'm afraid Hilda is looking a little worse for wear, the pencil now looking very smudged and faded. I think I actually did this one while I was still at school. (So it's very, very old)

A very rare landscape. The deckchair stand on Cleethorpes seafront.

Another in coloured pencil. The inscription reads Charlotte Lewis (what ever happened to her?) I think the year said 1986!

Sharron Gless

and an unfinished Tyne Daly.

Ah! This one has a little story with it. This one must have been a year or two later after college, I'd be about 21 and not long married. I occasionally did commissions for work colleagues, portraits from photos. This one was a workmates parents on their wedding day and I don't know if you can see but there is a stain right down the ladies face. Yep I nearly had this double portrait finished when I spilt a glass of Baileys down it and had to start all over again! There was certainly a lesson learned that evening I can tell you!

This one has lost some of its depth and definition, not to mention having a big crease across the top of her head. It's whats her face... er...can't remember her name...er...Shirley Maclaine! (I had to google Sweet Charity, lol)

This one is just a made up doodle. Isn't it weird how I can remember that. I can't remember what I did yesterday but I can remember a doodle I did a quarter of a century ago.

I found this one in a separate sketch pad, it's dated 2006. This would have been at the end of a year long textile course I did while the children where at school. It was only one afternoon a week but the best thing I ever did.
I must have been having one of my "I wonder if I can still do it" moments.

Keira Knightly 2006.

5 years ago.

Hmmm...I wonder if I still can?

.

Just to add - I didn't find the craft stamps in the loft, no they were neatly stacked in a cupboard in #2's bedroom!

Fi x

Thank you for your lovely comments. I really appreciate the time you take to tippety type them to me and I always read every single one. I know I don't get back to you all on your own blog pages as often as I would like but hopefully life will slow down a bit once Autumn is fully here and #1 is settled in at Uni. Our #2 has already put in a request for a change of bedrooms!

Aaaargh!