I was working with a new model at last week’s life drawing session at Swansea Print Workshop, and it takes a while to get used to someone’s features. These are 15-minute sketches, I was able to take a bit of time to get some measurements done. I used conté crayons in white, sanguine and black onto recycled Somerset printmaking paper, squeegeed with a couple of layers of different green acrylic screenprint inks.
Going back to July 2015 for this group of portrait sketches of elder women. I used conté crayons in white, sanguine and black onto brown parcel paper pasted into a sketchbook.
Here’s the late, great one-eyed Little Ming for this week’s #Caturday sketchbook archive, she was a very hairy tiny tortoiseshell cat that we rescued from neglect. Poor thing nearly died and spent several nights in the vet’s hospital and had to have an eye removed because her “owner” had neglected her so much. She was about 10 months old when we took on responsibility for her and she lived until she was 18 years! She always had a weakness in her lungs but she survived every winter with booster shots of antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and vitamins. She wriggled quite a lot when I was drawing her.
These are the first quick sketches from last night’s life drawing session at Swansea Print Workshop. I haven’t worked with this model before and it takes a while to get used to someone’s features, it takes a lot of concentration. These are 5-minute sketches and I used conté crayons in white, sanguine and black. I haven’t used conté for ages, it’s nice to get back into them again.
I prepped some recycled paper today. These are prints that have been discarded at Swansea Print Workshop, the paper is really good quality and it’s sold off cheap, so I re-use it for drawing. I put a thin layer of Daler Rowney System 3 acrylic paint onto it with a squeegee because I like to draw onto a coloured ground.
I carried on cutting my latest lino block today. Nothing staggeringly interesting, just keeping on keeping on, which is how most artwork is made. Meanwhile, Husb bottled the elderflower cordial he made with the flowers we foraged (responsibly) on Sunday. There’s plenty there for family too. I like to drizzle it over home-made sponge cake instead of a lemon drizzle.
The reality of making art is…you have to make it. Takes ages. I’m carving a new lino block. I’ll be carving it for quite some time.
I keep meaning to do more random sketches from imagination, just letting my bit of graphite scribble away to see what happens, but I find it so hard to let go and not work from life. I MUST TRY HARDER!!! 😀
I’ve been going through my old sketchbooks for #Caturdays for about a year now, here’s number 52 from July 2017, the late, great and very hairy Little Ming.
Going back 10 years in my sketchbook archives to some very hot weather that brought out the immortal combo of shorts and socks.
scribblah 