Street Metal!

I love street metal. I’ve really got a thing about manhole, stopcock and drain covers. I walk around the streets looking down and cooing when I spot a particularly fine example. People look at me funny. They’re fascinating – they’re portals to a world of water buried beneath our feet. Here are some from WaunContinue reading “Street Metal!”

Wonkiness On The Street

Last Sunday was my ninth walk through the Waun Wen area of the city, sketching as I go. I spend an hour just focussing on what I see and sketching. Sometimes the scribbles are just a few minutes, sometimes a view needs longer to be looked at and analysed before I start to draw. ThisContinue reading “Wonkiness On The Street”

What’s In A Name? Ghosts Of The Past.

What’s in a name? That’s the beginning of a quote by William Shakespeare. It’s a question I’ve thought a lot about in recent weeks as I’ve been working on a community arts project in the Waun Wen area of the city. It’s an area that’s gone through a lot of changes over the past 3Continue reading “What’s In A Name? Ghosts Of The Past.”

The Tech Genius And Art In The Wet

I’ve just changed the home page of my website for the next couple of months to show what I’m doing with the Home and Hinterland community arts project in Waun Wen, which is funded by Swansea University’s Taliesin Arts Centre. I’ve done more than 30 blog posts about it so far, and my tech geniusContinue reading “The Tech Genius And Art In The Wet”

Buried Water

I’ve been walking through the Waun Wen area of the city this afternoon, sketching and also taking rubbings in graphite onto paper of the “street metal”. It sounds like a type of heavy rock music, but it’s the metal bits that we generally don’t notice under our feet. Things like manhole, stopcock and drain coversContinue reading “Buried Water”

Silhouette

This is the second of a series of sketches I’m doing from photos I took of the war memorial in Kendal in the Lake District a few months ago. It was a bright day so the statue was silhouetted against the sky, wiping out any details on the statue. I’m using a ballpoint pen intoContinue reading “Silhouette”

Foreshortening And Mark Making

I saw a bronze sculpture of a World War 1 soldier on a memorial in Kendal in the Lake District. He was on a tall plinth and towered above me at an interesting angle, so I took a few photos from different sides and then completely forgot about them until I was browsing today andContinue reading “Foreshortening And Mark Making”

Nature’s Opportunists

They get everywhere, seagulls. Here they are hanging out on chimneys in the Waun Wen area of the city. There are no gulls officially called seagulls, and the ones that gang up on people around the city are usually herring gulls. These ones weren’t doing much, but come bin collection day, they’ll be ripping openContinue reading “Nature’s Opportunists”

Overhung….

Walking and drawing around the Waun Wen area which is built on two steep hills, on either side of a major dual carriageway. The road was much narrower in the past, but traffic planners in the late 20th century decided to widen it, to 5 lanes in places, and cut one half of the communityContinue reading “Overhung….”

Half ‘n’ Half

I started this drawing, the half on the left, one Sunday, walking around Waun Wen. It was freezing cold and my fingerless gloves left me too numb to carry on. The following week, I went back and did the other half, on the right. It was warmer. This is part of the Home and HinterlandContinue reading “Half ‘n’ Half”