The Summer holidays have been brilliant because the weather was fantastic.  Today I was walking around the town and went into the Troon Art Club exhibition.  I would say that all of the art was lovely, however there was only one painting I would have parted money for.  It was a watercolour and showed a rural scene with some snow in the foreground and a light grey image of a village in the background.  The artist had a good technical knowledge of how to use watercolour and used it well to paint this beautiful scene.  I was impressed with the technical skills on show at the exhibition.
 While there I also discovered some lovely images done by a local Artist called Rita Cotter who lived in Troon and was born in 1901 and attended Glasgow Art School.  In her memory is a Troon children's art exhibition and I saw the winning ones today - all of the five Primary Schools in the area took part. In the display about the art contest were some of her illustrations.
I liked her work right away because she liked portraying the seashore and was probably inspired by the Troon beaches just as I am.  I like the way she used line in her illustration of little folk.  I do have a real interest in illustrators just now.  I particularly like the work of Redox and Rackum.  I suppose that my knowledge of these illustrators would stand me in good stead.
In Primary teaching one sees a lot of picture books and I have seen that the more bright and colourful the picture book image- the more attention pupils will give to the story. I recently took in The Wonderful Wizard of |Oz into the class as the story tied in with the weather project we were doing.  The book is a pop up book and full of very bright images. (ISBN 0-0689-83498-5) The illustrator was Robert Sabuda written by Frank Baum. The pupils were mostly glued to every page and wanted to draw their own images to do with the story.
 On the internet are a huge wealth of images show a variety of different styles of illustrations.  Although it is always better to have an original book in your hand !

Today I went to the beach and picked up some objects which were similar but different.then made this painting on Art rage.. What interested me was the different shapes and forms all together in one place.  Shape and form are one of the main themes taught in art lessons.  So if I was teaching a lesson about the beach I would start with these objects as they are all so different in their form.  I also found strands of seaweed and a lovely piece of ancient pottery with a design on it.. All of these objects may be used to create their own story!!