Husb and I went to a gig the other night ….. more of that in another post. Of course I had to have a quick scribble or two. This is my old mate Peter Crow, who plays with an awesome Gothic Folk Rock band (I hope I got that right) called Wild-Eyed, Wicked and Oblivious. Check them out, all their material is original.
It’s a challenge sketching people who are performing, they move around a lot and sing! But it’s good practice.
I run regular adult education sessions and this week I was demonstrating collage using a line drawing of a skull and a copy of National Geographic. The eyes are by Picasso, the nose by the Hubble Space Telescope and the rest are from an exhibition of dead stuffed birds. When it’s finished I’ll coat it with several layers of PVA glue to make it stiff and waterproof and it can be used as a mask.
I always carry a sketchbook when I travel, I prefer to look at sketches rather than photos, they seem to take me back to that time and place more effectively than a snapshot that took a few seconds to capture. Although the scribbles are quick, they’re slower and take more attention and effort than photos, well, my photos anyway. Here are a few from New York City in 2008.
I’ve been taking a stroll through the images I’ve posted on this blog over the years – I’ve been doing it since 2011. It’s been good for me to revisit the work, I tend to ignore sketches once I’ve done them, which is a pity because there’s often some good stuff there. Here are four from June 2012.
From 2012, a sketchbook scribble of Oystermouth Castle in Mumbles at the western edge of Swansea. I used to do a lot more drawing en plein air directly into sketchbooks, but I fell out of that daily practice during the Covid19 lockdowns and I haven’t really got back into it. I should, it’s good for me in all sorts of ways. Drawing underpins all the art that I do, it gives me plenty of reference material to develop new work from. I get to go out and walk every day, and it gives people a chance to see an artist in action – to understand what we do.
Today I made a plum tarte tatin. It was buttery and sugary and plummy. I did loads of work in the garden and so did Husb and I thought we deserved this. It’s lush!
I’m preparing the ground under the black membrane for some French Beans.
One of my favourite places is Paviland, a strange otherworldly cove on the coast of the Gower Peninsula which is the site of the Goat’s Hole Cave, famous for the skeleton of the “Red Lady of Paviland“, which is actually a young man. From the main road, it’s a fair walk across fields via a marked footpath before the ground drops sharply and narrows into a steep rocky valley down to the beach. The slippery and difficult rocks look as if they have been melted and are splashed with colour from mosses and lichens and veins of different minerals coursing through them. I always take a sketchbook when I visit and I made this large monotype from one of my sketches.
The last in my short series of Elder Heads, all women and all showing great strength in the lines draw across their faces by life and experience.
And another hastily scribbled head of an elderly woman. She looks like she has had the cares of the world on her for many years. Graphite into a Khadi hand-made paper sketchbook.
Another scribble of an older person, as we get older we often look more like the opposite sex and it can be hard to tell elder men and women apart without cues like clothing, jewellery, make-up.
I’ve used a graphite block into a Khadi handmade paper sketchbook.
scribblah 