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Rosalind Hadden: Sketching!

#8

Sketching!

I’ve been a sketcher for years.  It started with a really bad back during my last term at school – a slipped disc, which required me to spend three months lying on my tummy in bed – and in that year’s family summer holiday I wasn’t allowed to play tennis or golf, or even to walk much:  what to do ?

My father (Dr Robert Hadden, a GP in Portadown) had painted a bit in his youth. He unearthed his ancient set of oil paints, and so I started art instead of sport. It wasn’t long before I switched to watercolours: not so sticky or smelly, and much lighter to carry around.

I didn’t go to art college, but I did take every chance I could to join in evening classes etc. Working for over 30 years with the John Lewis Partnership in central London, I was lucky enough to tenjoy some wonderful holiday courses run by the Royal Watercolour Society. As I only had time for art in the holidays – not like my  patchwork or crochet projects, which could be fitted into winter evenings – I mostly sketched my holiday scenes. At first I took quite a few  photographs too, to capture a ‘true record’  for copying at home; but later I realised that the sketch itself is the record, and can show so much more of the spirit of the place and the day than any photograph.

Years later, in 1985, I qualified for the Partnership’s Long Service Leave – and spent a happy six months travelling round the world, with two sketchbooks and the smallest possible set of gear – including this time a folding  stool, which enables you to sketch in comfort anywhere (no easel needed, just  your knees).

Eventually I retired and came home to Portadown, where I’ve been glad to play a part in two local art clubs – the Armagh Art Club, where for 17 years I was Treasurer, and the Portadown Visual Arts Society, based here at Millennium Court, for all of whose 20 years I was Secretary. There was time then for some ‘proper’ paintings to show in Club exhibitions, and some of those have sold, which is always a thrill – but I still love sketching best.

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