Sleeping Giant, Black Stones

Here’s another drawing I did yesterday on my journey around sites of ancestral stones in South Wales, using carbon and white conte crayon onto Fabriano Accademica paper prepared with homemade walnut husk ink. We travelled up the Swansea Valley, past Ystradgynlais and on to Abercrave where we stopped for a few minutes to show the Sleeping Giant to my young nephew who was out with us for the day. You can see him slumbering up on top of the hill (below).

Then another few miles up the valley towards Tafarn Y Garreg, where we scrambled across a stream strewn with slippery, slime-covered rocks and up a steep slope to Maen Fawr (Big Stone) and the Cerrig Duon (Black Stones) circle.

It’s a fairly large site with not only a circle but also two outlier stones marking a row with Maen Fawr and an avenue, although the stones used for this are so small and overgrown with tussocks of rough grass that it’s hard to find them

As a boy, archaeologist Dewi Bowen used to scramble on top of Maen Fawr and now, almost 55 years later, my young nephew has done the same.

I’m travelling around South West Wales with archaeologist Dewi Bowen who is researching his new book on Neolithic / Bronze Age monuments. His previous book on the standing stones of Ancient Siluria (South East Wales) can be found here. Accompanying us is film maker Melvyn Williams who is recording a documentary about our experiences. Some of Melvyn’s short films can be seen here. I’m working on a series of expressive drawings of ancestral sites and if you want to see some of my other artworks, please click here.