Tag Archives: art

"How to get into a River" - digital drawing by Nancy Farmer

How to get into a River

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"How to get into a River" - digital drawing by Nancy Farmer

“How to get into a River” – digital drawing by Nancy Farmer

*sploosh*
“oops… drops off suddenly here!”

…repeat until everyone is merrily splashing about in the river. In January. As you do.
And, before someone points it out: the trick of course is not in the getting in but in the making sure you have done so at a point where you can also get out again, because it would be a shame to miss the cake…

On Sunday the South West Seals swam with the Wiltshire Wild Swimmers at Tellisford Weir. I have somehow omitted the weir so there may be another drawing if I can find the time. Thank you Wiltshire Swimmers, it was a fabulous away day for the SW Seals and you are very welcome for a re-match on our home ground. Speaking personally: a gentle 10 minutes of swimming was followed by about 6 pieces of cake. We may need to get into some serious training for the re-match!
(I should add that they also cooked hot dogs on a fire, I’m just more a cake person and there’s only so much a girl can eat: one of everything was not physically possible…)

Row Clarke is centre stage here: her fabulous Deakin & Blue cossie teamed with an equally fabulous retro flowery swimming cap.

 

Ilminster Arts Centre poster

Prizewinners’ Exhibition at Ilminster Arts Centre 2nd – 19th Jan 2019

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Some months back I entered a couple of paintings into Ilminster Arts Centre’s Open Exhibition, and was delighted to win the exhibition first prize. So I’m now also pleased also to be able to tell you that several of my swimmer paintings are back in the Arts Centre now  – they are part of the Prizewinners Exhibition – an exhibition of work from the several artists who won prizes at the Open Exhibition. And it so happens that Ilminster Arts Centre is my favourite place to have an exhibition in anyway – it’s a large airy hall, with a cafe and excellent cake at one end of the gallery. All run by very lovely people, and a lot of them volunteers. Pop in if you are nearby – here are the details:

Prizewinners’ Exhibition: 2nd – 19th January
At: Ilminster Arts Centre at the Meeting House, East Street, Ilminster, Somerset, TA19 0AN
Gallery Open: Mon-Fri 9.30am-4.30pm; Sat 9.30am-2.30pm.
Admission Free.
Please note the exhibition will close at 12noon on Sat 19 January

Ilminster Arts Centre poster

Ilminster Arts Centre poster

Winter Sun - watercolour and metal leaf by Nancy Farmer

Winter Sun

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As the lake temperature plummets, it seems appropriate that I am adding this painting to the blog. This is one I finished a couple of months ago, back when a brisk swim in 3 degrees was a distant thing, but this is Row Clarke getting out of Clevedon Marine Lake last January, and it was indeed that cold, but gloriously sunny.

Everything that is not water is painted in watercolour (ironically) in a mix of pigments that looks like black but in fact is a transparent magenta, yellow and blue, which is more interesting for being not quite black and having subtle shades in it, and nicer to paint with. And all the water is done in a mix of aluminium, gold and palladium leaf. The first photo is taken with very flat lighting that shows the painting at its best overall, but a couple of images below this are snaps I took in different lighting, which show the effect of the metal leaf and the way the picture changes when half of it is metallic and half not.

Winter Sun - watercolour and metal leaf by Nancy Farmer

Winter Sun – Row emerging from Clevedon Marine Lake – watercolour and metal leaf by Nancy Farmer

Water done in metal leaf

Water done in metal leaf

Metal leaf - same picture, different lighting

Metal leaf – same picture, different lighting

source photo for Winter Sun

source photo for Winter Sun

Nancy Farmer 2019 Swimming calendar

2019 calendars are here!

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Nancy Farmer 2019 Swimming calendar

Nancy Farmer 2019 Swimming calendar

“Getting into Cold Water”
a calendar for 2019 with illustrations by Nancy Farmer

I wanted to let you know that I have 2019 calendars for sale. In truth I’ve been waiting patiently for a while to tell you this, so you may have seen that I have snuck them up in my etsy shop some while ago… But I always think that people don’t want to be reminded that the year is ending too early. So I hope you’ve had a good year so far, and there is still plenty of it to go. The water is getting colder though, at least where I live, so you may appreciate a glimpse of the new, appropriately named calendar.
you can buy them here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/waterdrawnart
As usual it features 12 new drawings which I’ve done over the course of the past year, with appropriate captions of course. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed drawing the pictures!

2019 Calendar - a few pages

2019 Calendar – a few pages

Swim Serpentine, 22nd September 2018

Swim Serpentine, 22nd September, 2018

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…or, how to draw an elephant in the room without making a fuss.

It loomed: vastly, hugely, enormously: The 20 metre high,   monster sculpture of 7000+ barrels, painted bright pink, red and blue, (in case a 20 metre high floating sculpture wasn’t already sufficiently visible already in the middle of the Serpentine). The work of artist Christo was precisely what I had not come here to depict.

The Swim Serpentine event was a lovely bunch of swimmers – nearly as many as the barrels – swimming their way around the Serpentine in Hyde Park, London, supported by a very hard working group of organizers, volunteers, lifeguards… that is what I had come to draw. The swimmers are centre stage but if you peer behind them you can see the yellow T-shirted lifeguards on hand to assist wobbly swimmers getting out. They were much appreciated.

And I have to hand it to the sculpture, it marks this event as this location, in this year. It drizzled for the afternoon so I battled the sculpture with a big yellow imaginary umbrella. I think the umbrella won. Useful things, umbrellas, especially imaginary ones.

(prints available from my etsy shop: www.waterdrawnart.etsy.com)

Swim Serpentine, 22nd September 2018

Swim Serpentine, 22nd September 2018

Swim Serpentine, detail of lifeguards

Swim Serpentine, detail of lifeguards

Swim Serpentine - details of swimmers starting and finishing

Swim Serpentine – details of swimmers starting and finishing

Clevedon Marine Lake on a very high tide

First check your Tide Tables…

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Last week there was a high spring tide. We would have known, had we actually looked  in the tide tables that we both have, which might have been sensible especially with Lucy’s balance just nearly restored. But we hadn’t, and for a while we swam in a hypothetical Clevedon Marine lake, or rather, we swam a couple of feet above the lake, until normality was restored.

NEW: If you like my drawings, you might like to know I’ve just put next year’s calendars up in my Etsy shop – more on this in the next post….

Clevedon Marine Lake on a very high tide

Clevedon Marine Lake on a very high tide

Exhibition, films & talks at Clevedon, 4th – 14th October 2014

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“Swimming Under the Sky”, Curzon Cinema, Clevedon

14th October – an evening of talks and films hosted by Ella Foote
4th to 14th October – exhibition of paintings by Nancy Farmer

I’m delighted to tell you that I’m taking part in a mini swimming & arts event at the Curzon Cinema, Clevedon. The main event will be on Sunday 14th, but my swimming paintings will be in the cinema from 4th October and you can see them during the opening hours of the cinema.

To book tickets: https://www.curzon.org.uk/event/42459
(tickets only necessary for the event on the14th, they are not required to see the paintings.)

From the Curzon’s website:
“What is it about cold water swimming that attracts so many people? What draws folk to push their bodies beyond the extreme in pursuit of the elusive ‘ice mile’? How does one mentally and physically prepare for a feat as demanding as a solo English Channel swim?

“Celebrated local swimmers Steve Price and Alec Richardson tell tales of their epic swims alongside 4 breathtakingly beautiful films about cold water immersion. Johanna (dir. Ian Derry) tells the story of how cold water therapy for a sports injury lead Johanna Nordblad to free dive below layers of cold thick ice; the very charming Time and Tide (dirs. Isabelle Rose Povey & Josh Embury) depicts the drive that brings Clevedon’s hardy open water swimmers to plunge themselves into the cold, silty brine of the Severn Estuary – a daily activity which doesn’t let winter get in the way.”

Calendars & Clevedon Hats:

I’ll have a small table with things for sale during the actual event, including my new calendar for next year, and some newly re-printed Clevedon Pier hats (not currently available but they will be ready by then).