Life Drawing: Nude Study with Watercolour [PG]

  I’m not a big fan of paint, I’d rather draw or make prints, but I like to use watercolours to add colour and pattern to some of the life drawings I do in pen and ink. I prefer watercolour to coloured ink because it has a lightness and transparency to it and in practicalContinue reading “Life Drawing: Nude Study with Watercolour [PG]”

A Skeleton in my Studio

This is Felicity and she’s borrowed from another artist; she’s living in my studio at the moment and looks out into the street over the bus stop, scaring passengers who look up.   Why do I draw from a skeleton? It’s partly technical, to understand the beautiful mechanics of the human body which helps meContinue reading “A Skeleton in my Studio”

Sprogs are so difficult!!!!

  I don’t find children easy to draw. They’re like animals and birds, they’re not still unless they’re asleep so sketches have to be very quick and you’re lucky if you get an accurate likeness. Here’s a page of sketches I did of Owain when we took him to the local milkshake bar. He wasContinue reading “Sprogs are so difficult!!!!”

Self Portrait? I Don’t Think So!

  I admire professional artists’ models because they put up with a level of scrutiny that would terrify most people and that includes me. I rarely do a self-portrait because when I look into a mirror I see what I want to see, someone younger and thinner! Subjecting myself to the same level of objectiveContinue reading “Self Portrait? I Don’t Think So!”

Woollies Pigeons

I sometimes go for coffee to Waterstones bookshop in Swansea, where the cafe is upstairs opposite the old Woolworths store. After Woollies closed, the signage was colonised by pigeons; before that, the signs were always lit up and too hot for the pigeons to sit on.  I liked to sit in the big old windowContinue reading “Woollies Pigeons”

A classic nude

  Thursday night is life drawing night in this little corner of Wales and we’re lucky enough to have an excellent group of models to work with, all ages, all shapes. The drawing studio at Swansea Print Workshop isn’t very big and it’s often crowded out. Last night I sat on the floor to getContinue reading “A classic nude”

Scribbling skeletons at random

  Sometimes it’s good to just have a scribble  and see what happens. It becomes an automatic thing, undirected and not linked to what’s in front of your eyes. It’s a chance to feel the drawing medium under your fingers and feel how it moves across the paper. Yesterday was a bit manic; studio firstContinue reading “Scribbling skeletons at random”

Tiny Art in a Venetian Plastic Sphere

Had a week off and back to the studio today. Strangely I worked better this morning; I’m usually at my best after lunch. I’m a bit tired because we spent most of last week travelling, entertaining, running and digging and now it’s catching up with me. I spent my time finishing my entries for theContinue reading “Tiny Art in a Venetian Plastic Sphere”

Draw Draw Draw: Feet to the Fore

  Call me old-fashioned but I draw almost every day and I make no apologies for that. I believe that drawing underpins visual art and that all artists should draw regularly to constantly improve what we do. Sometimes at the end of a long day I don’t really feel like sketching and it’s more outContinue reading “Draw Draw Draw: Feet to the Fore”

Archaic Blue Photography [very artgeek stuff]

I don’t always work from drawings although 90% of my work, or more, is based on sketches. Sometimes I have a bit of a play with photographic imagery and translate it into various forms of printmaking – monotype, block, screen, photogravure and cyanotype.   Cyan is the colour blue and also the first four lettersContinue reading “Archaic Blue Photography [very artgeek stuff]”