Adele - adelepound.co.uk

The Creative Peninsula returns for August Craft Month!

After being scuppered in 2020 by a certain pandemic, its great to have the Creative Peninsula Art and Craft Festival make a return for its 20th anniversary. I’ll be taking part in a number of events – read on for details of these. For a complete listing of all the events taking place across the borough of Ards and North Down, check out the Creative Peninsula website.

The Creative Peninsula is also part of August Craft Month, a month long celebration of all things craft across Northern Ireland. August Craft Month did take place last year in virtual form, but this year, its 15th, it will be wonderful for artists and audiences alike to have face to face events once again. Listings for all the events can be found on the Craft NI website. Here are Katherine McDonald, Craft NI Director, and Suzanne Lyle from the Arts Council NI talking about this years August Craft Month:

Summer 2021 will mark the 15th annual August Craft Month as makers across Northern Ireland seek to put the difficulties of the past 16 months behind them and embrace a time of 'renewal'https://t.co/rO0LJo7zOd #ACNISupported #AugCraft @CraftNI @CraftNIGallery pic.twitter.com/W90p45rSzB
— Arts Council of Northern Ireland (@ArtsCouncilNI) July 23, 2021

New Makers Directory Listing

Craft NI also has its new Makers Directory up and running. Makers from across Northern Ireland are gradually populating their profiles so the directory will continue to grow. I have just completed my profile which you can view here

https://craftni.org/makers/adele-pound/

watercolour drawing of two ants, one with a large cake crumb

Exhibitions

For the month of August two Creative Peninsula exhibitions will run which showcase the work of makers and artists from across the borough of Ards and North Down. I have submitted one piece to each show. This year I have chosen to showcase my insect field drawings. These were made in the garden at home and were my response to being unable to make my usual field trips due to the travel restrictions imposed during the first wave of Covid.

The principle and larger of the two shows is at Ards Arts Centre. The second exhibition takes place at North Down Museum

Creative Peninsula in the Square

As always events will kick of with the an Art and Craft village appearing in Conway Square, Newtownards! this year, for everyone’s safety, a one way system, hand sanitizer stations and careful control of numbers will be in operation. I will also have hand sanitizers at my stall for anyone who requires them.

The event will take place this coming Friday, 30th July, from 11am to 5pm. I will be there with cards, prints, paper birds and original art for you to peruse!

https://creativepeninsula.andculture.org.uk/whats-on/creative-peninsula-square

Alfresco Art

it is always a pleasure to take part in this event which has a relaxed Sunday afternoon vibe enjoyed by makers and visitors alike. Enjoy a coffee from the Coffee Cure at North Down Museum and watch free demos from a range of artists and craft makers. There will be a chance to have a go yourself in some cases. I will be making my paper birds and will also have some free versions to colour in and make. the full list of artists and times can be found on the Creative Peninsula website:

https://creativepeninsula.andculture.org.uk/whats-on/alfresco-art-and-craft-demonstrations

Workshop

This year I am also delivering my “Drawing a Moving Object” workshop, featuring the famous revolving sheep skull! Although, if the weather is nice we might venture out to the square in search of pigeons!

The workshop is on Wednesday 4th August from 10 am to 1pm. You can find out more and book a place on the Creative Peninsula website

https://creativepeninsula.andculture.org.uk/classes/sketching-moving-object-adele-pound

The Great Kit Challenge exhibition

This has been a great project to take part in and we are all nearing the point where we can offer our kits for sale. Generous friends and family are currently beavering away trying to make the kits we have given them. We await their verdicts and feed back with trepidation!

To celebrate our efforts and the successful completion of the project there will be an exhibition at Top Floor Art in Saintfield where you will be able to see and hopefully buy all the kits that have been created.

Details for the Exhibition and meet the maker events at Top Floor Art can be found in the August Craft Month listings.

The Creative Peninsula returns for August Craft Month! Read More »

The Great Kit Challenge 2021

Adele / Exhibitions, News, Projects

I am very excited to be taking part in this great local initiative from Emma Whitehead and Top Floor Art. The project is supporting 17 artists to develop what they do into a craft kit. Some of the kits will be designed for sale and some for supplying community groups. Each artist has received a small materials grant. There is also a mutually supportive facebook group where we are discussing our kits and asking for advice and ideas. I am hoping to develop the famous Bob the Robin into a kit.

Besides developing our kits for sale, We will celebrate the project with an Exhibition at Top Floor Art in Saintfield in August.

Alongside the challenge, there is a crowd funding campaign to raise further funds to support the project. You can see a video about the project at Go Fund Me. Yours truly features briefly!
www.gofundme.com/f/The-Great-Kit-Challenge-2021

You can find out more about Top Floor Art and the progress of the project at their website and facebook page:
http://topfloorart.com/
https://www.facebook.com/topfloorart

‘Wild Things’ Postcard exhibition now live

My ant drawings are now live in The Wild Things virtual postcard exhibition on the Beach Gallery, Orkney’s website. Everything is postcard sized and everything is £25. All the pieces can be seen in their online shop:

https://www.beachgallery.co.uk/wildthingsexhibition

The exhibition also got a mention on BBC Radio Orkney just before it opened. Here is the blog that Carolyn, the gallery owner, wrote about the experience. follow the link there to hear the recording and a very lovely Scottish accent in the form of the interviewer, Cameron!

https://www.beachgallery.co.uk/post/beach-makes-the-bbc-news

New card designs now available

In between developing a Bob kit, I have been busy making my lockdown vector drawings into new cards. Here are some of my new designs. In addition to single cards, I have created two new packs of five – “Scottish Wildcat” and “Rivers and Lakes”. Hopefully I will be out and about in person with them this summer, but in the meantime you can buy from:

The Craft Room Comber

Or on line from Love from the Artist

Single cards
https://www.lovefromtheartist.com/artists/ballygowan/adele-pound-art
New packs “Scottish Wildcat ” and “Rivers and Lakes”
https://www.lovefromtheartist.com/Artists/ballygowan/adele-pound-art/card-packs

“River Sprite”

The Great Kit Challenge 2021 Read More »

The Virtual Exhibiting Continues

Adele / Exhibitions, News

Its been all about the ants in my house! With lockdowns still continuing, I’ve been making field trips, armed with my magnifying glass, to our polytunnel in search of beasties to draw. When you get up close, ants are magnificent beasties. they are such a rich, dark red-brown-almost-black colour, like tiny pieces of articulated mahogany walking about and so shiny I could see my shape reflected on their backs. I brought them some cake one day which they seemed to enjoy, though there was a fight at one point. Too much sugar so early in the season maybe? I broke it up with a grass stalk and they soon forgot about it and got back to business.

Wild Things at the Beach

Three of my ant drawings have already been sent off to the Beach Gallery on Hoy in Orkney. They will be part of the “Wild Things” postcard exhibition which will run on their website from May to September 2021. The gallery hosted an exhibition of my work a couple of years ago and, although I was unable to visit, I had great fun creating videos to compliment art classes being run in the gallery and getting thank you videos back from the participants! I was delighted to get the chance to be involved with the gallery again. All the pieces in the exhibition are postcard sized and all are priced at £25.00. Check out their website to browse all the pieces submitted and their facebook page for news of new pieces arriving:

https://www.beachgallery.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/BeachGalleryOrkney/

New Beginnings for Kilmood Art Club

Yet more ants are also in Kilmood Art Club’s latest virtual exhibition “New Beginnings” now showing on our facebook and website. The club has been unable to meet for over a year but the committee has made great efforts to keep activities for members going. this is our 5th online exhibition and it is great to see members the engaging so enthusiastically with over 40 entries. In addition to exhibitions we have been meeting by zoom for painting nights and for art demos from artists. We have even done an online life drawing class thanks to Boom Studios in Bangor! Here are the links where you can see the new exhibition:

https://www.kilmoodartclub.org/gallery

https://www.facebook.com/kilmoodartclub

advertising banner. Exhibition Wildlife Art and online gallery 29th July to 1st August 2021

Exhibition Wildlife Art Online

I am delighted to once again be taking part in the lovely Exhibition Wildlife art, albeit virtually, this Summer. There are high hopes that the physical show can take place again this year at Gordale Garden Centre, but there will also be an online gallery available for browsing and purchasing. With all the uncertainty around travel, this is the option I have chosen. I’ll be posting again nearer the time when I have chosen and uploaded my images. You never know, I might just send them some ants!

https://www.ewa-uk.com/pages/home.php

https://www.facebook.com/Exhibition-of-Wildlife-Art-1345925302112930

The Virtual Exhibiting Continues Read More »

From the Year that Never Was to the Year that Might or Might Not!

Adele / News

Welcome to my new website, I hope you like what you see! You would probably be surprised if you knew how much procrastination, confusion, indecision and general brain hurtyness has gone into the outrageously long time it has taken to put these four small pages together! but here it is at last. I am excited and slightly intimidated to now have a proper blog page. I will use it for news and events and any other musings that seem appropriate. hopefully it will be a chance to show you a bit more of what I get up to behind the scenes and the ideas and projects I have on the go. In the mean time I hope you enjoy reading a bit about me and looking at a selection of my work.

I am grateful to the Arts Council NI and the Department for Communities for awarding me a grant back in October under the individual Emergency Resilience Program which was set up in response to the widespread financial difficulties being felt in the arts in Northern Ireland as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The grant has enabled me to survive the new lockdowns we are now in and finally focus my mind on making this site and producing work, as well as giving me a much needed respite from stressing about my finances.

Lockdown Lookbook

As you might imagine there isn’t a whole lot of news to tell you just now. I am, however, included in this lovely virtual catalogue of local makers the “Lockdown Lookbook”. I has been put together by the brilliant folk from the Fine and Dandy market as a way to support their regular stall holders while the markets are not allowed. It is available now to peruse on ISSUU. Do have a look and support your local makers if you can. You can also see the promotions for all the makers taking part by following the Fine and Dandy Facebook page.

2020 was definitely the year that never was, here’s hoping 2021 has something better to show us!

From the Year that Never Was to the Year that Might or Might Not! Read More »