This is the final drawing I did last week on our two-day drawing / archaeology / filming trip to Pembrokeshire. It’s a beautiful site, Gors Fawr, near Mynachlog-ddu in the Preseli mountains, a lush green bog fringed with glowing hills, dotted with a stone circle and two outliers constructed from bluestone. It’s the last drawing I’ll be doing for a few weeks as I must now concentrate on getting the work ready for my solo show next month, but we hope to resume our hunt for wild megaliths throughout the Autumn. You can see Dewi Bowen, archaeologist and Melvyn Williams, filmaker in the photo above. We’ve been doing this for seven months and there are still plenty more ancestral monuments to visit, draw, film and write about.
Each monument, each ancient site, affects me in different ways and this carries over into my drawings. It’s easier to draw a standing stone or chambered tomb than a stone circle as the subject is smaller, more focused, not spread across a large area, so I’ve tended towards far more abstraction with the circles. I work quickly and intuitively and don’t really see what I’ve done until it’s finished. This was a surprise – it’s quite Pop Art. I’m starting to think that it might translate nicely into a silkscreen print. But not until the Autumn!
Since February, I have been travelling across South Wales with Rhondda-born archaeologist Dewi Bowen and Swansea film maker Melvyn Williams; cold and stormy, hot and humid, up mountains, through slurry, mud and bog, in all weathers accompanied by my portable drawing board, portfolio of Fabriano paper and a bag full of assorted artist’s materials. Dewi is researching his latest book on Neolithic monuments and Melvyn is making a documentary film of our literary and artistic adventures.
I’ve done around 50 drawings now and these will be exhibited in my solo show in The Worker’s Gallery in the Rhondda Valley in September. Please click here to find out more about it.
And if you want to see some of my other artwork, please click on the image below.
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Best of luck getting ready for the show Roise, what a fantastic project and what a powerful drawing.
Thank you, Phil. It’s getting scarier now 😊
It looks like a big show, I can imagine it’s a bit of an anxious time buts it’s going to be GREAT 😊
And all the very best for yours too. Where is it?
Thanks Rosie, it’s down in Whitsable on the north Kent coast.ive been based down there for a few months doing some day job work and it’s got s lovely gallery. It’s a popular destination as a weekend retreat for Londoners – hope it rains all week so they have to come in the gallery lol
Oh yes, do a rain dance in advance 😀
😊
So interesting – my first thought when I saw this drawing was how graphic it is, then read your comment about how you respond differently to each site. The impact of each goes beyond what you are controlling yourself.
Oh yes, I have learnt since beginning this in February to let go and lose control. I have no interest in doing ‘formal’ landscape drawings or painting. I aim for far more realism and control when i draw people. It’s been an interesting experience over the past 6 months.
Powerful sketch. And I like the ling and the green hills.
Have a lovely day! 🙂
Thank you. It’s a lovely area to travel in 😀