Birmingham is a nice city. I don’t know why I should be surprised by that, but I am. I made my first visit to the city this weekend and it is lovely. Of course I’ve been to the NED many times, but have never ventured into the city. This time we all went into the centre for a meal and found a delightful Thai restaurant in a beautiful tree lined square.the whole place was buzzing and had such a great atmosphere. I might even go back to Birmingham for a weekend break!
The show at the NEC was ok, although the art materials section seems to be getting smaller and the craft bit is getting larger. The popularity of card making, stamping, etc is growing, but I don’t get the attraction of buying loads of sticky shapes and glittery stars to stick onto cards….
There were hordes of mostly large women with shopping trollies, which they were filling with all these sticky shapes and glue guns and glitter. And woe betide you if you got in their way at all – they’ll break your ankles With the metal spikes on their trollies!
I’m being a bit unkind really, as there were also a lot of women in motability scooters, for whom this kind of crafting I guess is a bit of a lifeline.
Anyway, I did tend to stay in the art section, where it was definitely quieter, but where there was more stuff to hold my interest. We all sat drawing most of the day to promote coloured pencil as a fine art medium. It went well, but the best bit for me was finding a whole day to site and draw! I have been finding it so hard to get time to draw lately, so it was fab.
Great to chat to the other artists too. Only thing was the long drive back last night. Took more than an hour to clear Birmingham, making the whole journey 4 hours instead of the three it should have been.
So tonight I was out again and am now really tired after that drive…
Some sleep is required, so night night xx
Barbara Murray Art 