A wonderful journey

It’s coming up to the anniversary of my blog ‘Racing Lines’ – My first post was made on 7th July 2012… Just text and no images to try WordPress and see what I could do. In seven years, the blog has taken me to lots of places and I’ve met some lovely people and made friends – It’s been a great adventure – just with my pens, watercolours and pastels – and my laptop. Today, I discovered that the number of people following ‘Racing Lines’ has risen to 3,000, which I find quite incredible. WordPress tells me that there have…

New Year waltz…

02/01/201902/01/2019 Categories: dance · life · performanceTags: dancing · New Year concert · vienna · waltz4 Comments

Nothing like a Viennese waltz to start the New Year… happy dancing 🙂

Ballet, art, Pas de deux by Maxine Dodd, watercolour, pen and ink with gouache

Moves

08/01/201606/11/2018 Categories: dance17 Comments

Hello! Starting the new year with a little experiment that shows a sequence of four stages in the making of one small mixed media painting. Wishing you the very best for 2016! Here are my drawings…

Three faces

05/02/201406/11/2018 Categories: music · performanceTags: art · cello · double-bass · drawing fast · faces · hands · illustration · ink · music · musicians · tortlier · vienna · watercolour6 Comments

Hello! Still on the path of music, I’ve been working on more drawings of faces at play. More finding their way to the dustbin than here, but I wanted to share these three with you. Here are my drawings:

Playing

24/01/201406/11/2018 Categories: music · performanceTags: art · cello · double-bass · drawing fast · faces · hands · illustration · ink · music · musicians · tortlier · vienna · watercolour2 Comments

Hello! Following my recent post inspired by cellos and basses, I’ve been looking and drawing more musicians, this time concentrating on their faces while they play. Arguably, the most amazing face belonged to cellist Paul Tortelier, a wonderful and much-missed musician. The drawings I’ve made of him here are a start and I’ll have to practice more, but I wanted to include them. You’ll see that I left the watercolour off in two of them as I felt the lines were enough. Here are my drawings:

Fascinating rhythm

17/01/201406/11/2018 Categories: music · performanceTags: art · cello · double-bass · drawing fast · faces · hands · illustration · ink · music · musicians · vienna · watercolour4 Comments

I saw these musicians on TV playing at the New Year’s day concert in Vienna. The line of basses (or cellos – apologies for my ignorance) created a wonderful pattern that I found fascinating. I loved the repetition of each musician playing side by side, but of course, each one is unique, creating a nuance between each figure. My impressions were very quick and ragged to say the least, but I think worth developing further. See what happens! Here are my drawings:

Bolero!

09/08/201306/11/2018 Categories: dance · performanceTags: art · arts · ballet · bolero · dance · drawing · drawing fast · drawings gallery · fire · flamenco · illustration · ink · light · movement · orchestra · passion · pen · ravel · reportage · Spanish dance · watercolour2 Comments

Hola! Music and dance are a great source of inspiration. I’m fascinated by orchestras, bands and dancers and the way they work together. There was an exciting development at the Proms, where the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra were joined on stage by the Antonio Marquez Dance Company. They worked brilliantly together. The climax of the concert was the mesmeric Bolero by Ravel, with added flamenco rhythms. Wonderful! Here are my drawings:

Racing lines

Art by Maxine Dodd

Category: performance