New Art Exhibition

I have badly neglected this blog. I think I was just feeling very disillusioned with life in general and art in particular! But getting this art exhibition together with John Rubery has done a lot to re-ignite my enthusiasm. It was supposed to be held last year and was then cancelled due to COVID. We got the chance to put it on again at very short notice - only two weeks - but decided to go ahead!

Visitor numbers are still down - I think because of Covid - but reactions to the show have been excellent!

 

Frustrating!

 In some ways it has been a very frustrating month! For the first half I was shooting well and quite consistently. It was cold and I was using my improvised "winter shooting gloves". The right hand consists of a normal - but rather light - archery glove inside put inside of a gardening glove to which I had sewn some leather to protect my fingers. Works well! But the weather has got warmer and these gloves are no longer comfortable.

Unfortunately, my bought archery gloves are a bit too light for the bows I am using now. I have tried tabs - don't like these - and several others. I also experimented with various ways of giving my fingers extra protection, sewing on extra leather, etc. Then I tried pushing one too light shooting glove inside another - this actually worked for most of last year. But now the outer glove has become rather worn and the reinforcing leather at the tips is beginning to catch on the string. Can still get in some very good shots (as above) but I am also seeing an increase in poor shots and I can sometimes feel a roughness in the release. Overall, not shooting that badly - just not as good as earlier! I think I can do better!

I have ordered a new glove which should be heavier, but it will probably be a couple of weeks before it arrives!

A Decent Practice

 A decent practice today, 89% scoring 8 or above (yesterday it was 92%). My average for the month so far is 88%. I would like to get the average up to 90%. The importance of this is that it indicates how tight is the "scatter" of my shots. However, the odd mistake is always going to creep in, so it will be difficult to improve this percentage much more.

Perhaps a better indicator of progress is going to be the percentage of my "gold" shots. At the moment I have an average of 60% scoring 9's and 10's.

I am shooting instinctively. The biggest difficulty is in not "correcting" myself and over-thinking what I am doing. My best shots follow from when I draw the arrow into position - and then succeed in concentrating on the target while trusting my hand and eye to co-ordinate and do the rest! I have noticed that scoring a very high percentage of 8+ shots is not necessarily accompanied by a higher percentage of very good shots to the center of the target! I suspect that this is a result of being too "careful", rather than trusting my instincts!

Archery glove problems?

Until a few days ago I was using a pair of winter gloves for shooting, averaging about 88% of the arrows scoring 8 or better. At the other end of the scale I was scoring between 10% and 12% into the the inner gold circle. With the weather getting warmer and I decided to change to lighter gloves - and suddenly I was scoring many fewer really good shots, no more than 5%. Today I changed my glove again to a thinner one and my better shots are back up again! Possibly I need to get a new archery glove, the old ones are getting quite worn.

Flying Straight!

My bow rack in my studio - 80lb Warbow, 65lb Longbow, 40lb homemade Self bow.

A decent practice today. My release seems improved as the arrows were all flying straighter. Not a big improvement in the score though. 89% of my shots are still scoring 8 or higher, which I think reflects well on my daily practice, but I can do better! I should be getting more arrows in the gold.

A Little Improvement!

 Archery practice today was just a little bit better. For some reason, yesterday's felt "flat"! I was going through the motions, hitting my targets with reasonable accuracy, but it still felt a bit "off".

One clue to how well I am shooting is the flight of the arrow. It should be smooth, without discernible "wiggle" and should go into the target straight, not at an angle. When it doesn't, it usually means my release was poor - effectively I have pushed or dragged the nock a little to one side. I might still be quite accurate but consistency suffers. Today, at least some of the shots felt right - I was focused on the target (rather than thinking consciously about what I was doing), the release was smooth and the flight straight! Now I just have to keep doing that!

Skilled Archery versus Inspired Archery!

 I have been rather neglecting this blog, I think that I need to use it simply to think out some of the things on my mind, whether anyone else is interested or not.

My practise range,in the snow!

At the moment I am mostly thinking about how my archery practice has been going. Today was interesting, not because it was good, but rather because it was rather average! My longbow is tillered to 62lbs @ 28" and I start shoot 5 rounds of 20 arrows at 10 metres, 2 per target face. Then I change to a warbow, tillered to 77lbs @ 32" (I am actually pulling about 75lbs at my 30" draw and I use a different set of slightly longer arrows). I shoot 2 rounds of 12 arrows (plus 1 extra to make a total of 25), I am still trying to adjust to this bow as it is approximately 15 lbs heavier than the longbow, so 25 is enough to avoid risk of excessive strain. I record my results as percentages, I count the arrows touching or inside the inner 10 circle, then all the 10's, the the 9's PLUS the 10's and finally ALL arrows within or touching the 8 circle. Anyting outside that is counted as a miss.

When I first started archery I thought I was doing well to get 70% 8's or higher. Last year I was averaging 80%, now I am beginning to push 90% with the longbow! What is interesting is why ALL the arrows aren't within this area. I usually miss - and I know it - because I have temporarly lost concentration, rather than because of any physical mistake. The "better" shots will still vary a bit. A few, though, give a different feel - like everything is just coming together perfectly! I tend to average about 5% close to the exact center, as today. But when it really comes together, this goes up to 10-15%. It almost feel like something is clicking into place at the exact moment of shooting! This is the moment when archery becomes "inspired"!

"The Valley"

l am rather proud of the pathworking I created based on this painting. It is intended to take the viewer on an imaginative trip into the painting. The video is an attempt to recreate the performance I put on as part of my "Dreaming Reality" art exhibition in 1988. The video is nine minutes long with two pauses of about ten seconds (which can be paused for longer if the viewer desires). It takes the viewer from a hot summer's day in the country into a mysterious and restful shaded valley. If you would like to experience it for yourself, try the link below!

''The Valley Pathworking"

My Virtual Exhibition on Facebook

My friend, John Rubery, and I were supposed to have a joint art exhibition at Bangor Carnegie Library in April, to be called "Thomas Spencer and John Rubery Exhibition - The Class of '76" (since we went to Art College together).

Unfortunately, due to fears over the Coronavirus, that had to be cancelled. However, I have decided to create a virtual exhibition on my professional Facebook page, Thomas Spencer Artist, posting pictures with a short explanation about them.

Please visit!