Featured artist, ART

The artist featured this week is Alice Rowan Tinsley, aged 7 (nearly 8) from Cardiff. Her drawing above shows Kelmscott Manor from the east, what I call the "News From Nowhere" side, as drawn by C.M. Gere to Illustrate Morris' novel of that name and shown on the right above. Alice was particularly pleased with the way she worked out how to draw the roof gables on this, her second attempt at the Manor, drawn from memory in the Brewhouse.

Her next drawing is a confident linear design for a dish, which she said was not a copy of any particular one in the Manor but was her own idea for a plate, inspired by what she had seen. The third drawing is from memory, with very well observed lips and hairstyle and based on Rossetti's portrait of Jenny Morris on the right below.

All Alice's works are pencil on A4 paper, signed by the artist.

Drawn on the 30th of July

"The Dragon on the Hedge" by Mabel, aged 5

When children visit, we ask them what their favourite thing is at Kelmscott Manor, and then to draw it. The same objects and views are reappearing in the collection of drawings I have in The Brewhouse, but this week I got three excellent drawings of new favourite items : the topiary Icelandic dragon Fafnir by Mabel (above), May's tiny birds in an oval box by Cosimo (below) and WM's bed by Claire (below left). Claire Morris' brother in the pushchair is called William.

Photograph of Claire and William Morris alongside Claire's drawing, photograph of Cosimo in the Brewhouse drawing his picture from memory.

Chair, possibly by FMB

In Jane's bedroom, The Garden Hall, my bedroom

I recognized the chairs as soon as I saw them in Kelmscott Manor as I have one in my bedroom at home. I had no idea it was a Morris & Co. chair possibly designed by Ford Madox Brown. When I looked through my old school sketchbook trying to find something last week, I came across this drawing of the very same chair. It was drawn in my family's sitting room that was papered with WM Marigold wallpaper in olive green (not included in the drawing!).

From my school sketchbook, 1977

Artistic licence

I enjoyed seeing my old work again, so here is some more. Above is a page from my 1987 sketchbook when I was designing a window for a house in Oxfordshire. This design was rejected  because of its industrial feel, the pylons in particular - outrageous because pylons are such a huge part of the Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire landscape. 

I remember when I was sketching telegraph wires next to an old barn when I was about fifteen, my Dad suggested to me that I didn't need to put the wires in the drawing. He explained this was called "artistic licence". It was a great relief to discover that I could leave things out if I wanted to, but pylons and telegraph poles are usually the things that I decide to leave in.

Pylons drawn and photographed near Yate                                                 Drawing from the attic at Kelmscott Manor

Brown and yellow windows

The first panels I made at The Royal College of Art (Albert Hall in the background) in 1983

Painting on glass is to me the most interesting aspect of stained glass. When I was a student at the RCA before I developed my own way of using glass enamels I used the traditional glass painters' opaque iron oxide and yellow silver stain. 

Imagine my amazement when I went to the V&A last year and saw that some windows had appeared using these same techniques and on the back of rolled plate glass, usually used in industrial buildings. These were commissioned when the V&A opened from William Bell Scott (friend of DGR & WM) but were already out of fashion by 1910-13 when they were removed and stored.

Two of four staircase windows by William Bell Scott in the V&A made from 1867-9

I saw an example of these same painting techniques in a series of four leaded windows to Noble Women in the Lady Chapel of Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. They were made by Powell and Sons between 1910 & 1920, lovely design, lovely subject matter including Christina Rossetti on the right, below.