I did something unusual at the weekend. Fellow artist Claudia Mollzahn was holding an art event at Volcano theatre in Swansea’s High Street and offered me window space to develop something over two hours. I’ve had some translucent drawing film on a roll knocking around the place for ages so I decided to stick it on the window and draw what I could see of the street behind it. Unfortunately I made the mistake of not trying it out first and when I put it up, it wasn’t as translucent as I’d thought, I couldn’t see anything through it. Then my young nephew came to the rescue. He was easily persuaded to sit in a chair playing games on my phone while I drew a massive portrait of him. It was great drawing on the inside of the window, loads of people passing by stopped to look at the drawing being developed from the other side.
I tried out different drawing materials, some worked, some didn’t. I sketched the basic drawing with a graphite block and some white conte crayon, My home-made walnut ink was a wash out, it wouldn’t stick to the surface of the film at all, so I used Bideford Black to fill in the dark areas and carbon for the lines. Making a mistake often leads to something good.
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What a great opportunity, and what a great drawing! I love the way your nephew looks as though he is coming in to land, perfect for a window. I love working on drafting film, it takes coloured pencils beautifully, but I have only done miniatures so far, a bit different from the scale of this! Must have been nerve-wracking, but such fun!
Oh I haven’t tried coloured pencils, I’ll have to give them a go.
Nice! Makes me want to work large again.
Thank you. I hope you do 🙂
Me too!
I appreciate you sharing mistakes as well as successes Rosie, it’s one of the things blogging is so good for I think, showing process, and it’s heartening for a fellow artist 😉
Thanks Phil. We also have to be able to turn a mistake into an opportunity I think 🙂
We’ll look forward to seeing it!
Mistakes are the only way to learn! I’m impressed at the drawing size! Would love to have seen it from the outside.
🙂
I have a picture from the outside and Melvyn shot some footage, hope to put it up tonight 😊