My mojo just wasn’t with me last night at life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop. We had a great model that I’ve drawn before and I had lovely paper and graphite, but I just couldn’t get into it. The drawing isn’t too bad, but the likeness isn’t quite there. Sometimes that’s just the way it is.
Just back from life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop and I’m just doing a quick post before going to bed. Nos da, goodnight
I had a bit of a break from block cutting after my residency in April, I went away for nearly a week and I’ve been catching up on stuff too. So today I got out a prepared lino block and started carving. I had to give up after half an hour because a) my hand was hurting, no carving for a couple of weeks and it’s softened up; and b) Eric decided to “help”. As you can see. So I put it away for another day.
I stayed in East Sussex last week, with some very dear old friends. We went to Towner Eastbourne and saw the permanent collection of work by the early 20th century artist Eric Ravilious. I’d always found his landscape paintings a little bit insipid, if I’m honest, but we went walking along the South Downs after seeing the exhibition and I realised that his palette is very accurate: the colours of this part of the East Sussex landscape are very muted and delicate. I did a quick pencil sketch en plein air and today I used gouache to start blocking in some colour. Once it’s dry, I’ll work over it with tiny patterns of slightly different shades and tints of the base colours. It was only when I got up close to the framed work in the Gallery that I realised the extent of his patterning.
It’s nice to get a quiet, reflective pose when I’m working with a model. It sort of influences how I do the drawing. I was able to do a lot of measuring with this one, which paid off because it’s fairly accurate. I prepared some recycled printmaking paper with a layer of acrylic paint squeegeed on (Daler Rowney System 3 with screenprint medium) and drew with a graphite block.
Can you believe it’s come round again! It’s #Caturday Saturday and here we are back in December 2016 in North Cyprus. This is one of the semi-feral cats living in our hotel garden. They were very well fed by both guests and staff and mostly quite tame.
These are the last 5 of a series of 15 drawings I did in May 2015, based on sketches I made from life, out and about en plein air, drawing real people in real places. They are drawn over “transfer” prints, inkjet prints that are transferred chemically to fine art printmaking paper; mostly I used Bockingford and Somerset. Once the transfer print was dry, I re-drew from my sketchbook with Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens.
Here are some more of a series of drawings I did back in May 2015, based on sketches I made from life, out and about en plein air. They are drawn over “transfer” prints, inkjet prints that are transferred chemically to a fine art printmaking paper; mostly I used Bockingford and Somerset.
I’ve been on holiday for a few days, not far, a Staycation, and it was good to have a rest, stating with old friends on the South Coast of England. I didn’t do much artwork, I just went for long walks and chilled out enjoying lovely conversation. It was grand. Here are some drawings I did back in May 2015. They’re based on sketches I made from life, out and about en plein air.
At Swansea Print Workshop we do a lot of recycling and any prints that people leave behind after teaching sessions, ones they were not happy with, are reused in some way. Some that have a clean side are bagged up and sold on for drawing, sketching and proof prints. I bought a bag to use for life drawing but I prepared them first by using a squeegee to put down a thin layer of acrylic for a mid-tone (Daler Rowney System 3 with screenprint medium). The embossed print on the other side showed through, which I really liked. I drew with a 6B graphite block then added white acrylic highlights using a small piece of stiff card to scrape the paint across the areas I wanted. I’ll continue working into this with a stronger black medium to strengthen the lines – maybe a carbon block.
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