I don’t usually paint, preferring pen and ink, charcoal and chalk. Now and again I bring out the watercolours in life drawing sessions and have a bash. The received wisdom is that watercolour is a gentle, refined medium where you build up layers of pale delicate glazes. Some of the artists in theContinue reading “A Watercolour Gorefest!”
Category Archives: Arty Stuff
Busy Day Making A Monotype [nude image: Parental Guidance]
I spent the whole day at Swansea Print Workshop, making a new large full colour monotype. Here it is. It started life as a sketchbook drawing done during the weekly life drawing group at the Workshop. I redrew it, scaled up onto a much larger sheet of paper in conté, charcoal and white pastel. IContinue reading “Busy Day Making A Monotype [nude image: Parental Guidance]”
Artgeek stuff – Continuous Line and Direct Monotypes [nude image – PG]
I’m a frenetic scribbler, always sketching and I have thousands of drawings done over the years. It’s fun to go through old sketchbooks and see what I can do with the images. The drawing style I use most is the ‘continuous line’ method, where I keep the pen on the paper without taking aContinue reading “Artgeek stuff – Continuous Line and Direct Monotypes [nude image – PG]”
Drawing Heads At Speed
I don’t normally do portraits because I think they’re really HARD. I find it much easier to draw the human body, rather than the face, but now and again I have a go. It’s easier when you’ve been drawing the model for a while because you get used to them. The face is notContinue reading “Drawing Heads At Speed”
Printmakers – the Misers of the Artworld?
All the serious printmakers I know never ever throw anything away. Left-over ink is carefully wrapped in cling film, prints that haven’t worked out are recycled for drawing or collage, paper stencils are carefully peeled off screens and applied to a background sheet as a unique monotype/collage, old bits of wooden furniture and offcuts ofContinue reading “Printmakers – the Misers of the Artworld?”
Really Artgeek Stuff – from Sketch to Drawing to Monotype [PG]
Just completed a new large full-colour monotype using the 3-colour reduction method. I started off with a sketch which I did in a life drawing session then I developed it into a larger drawing [bottom image] in compressed charcoal, graphite block and white oil pastel onto a sheet of recycled Bockingford 250gsm paper. It hadContinue reading “Really Artgeek Stuff – from Sketch to Drawing to Monotype [PG]”
Things to Do With a Four Inch Screw
Instead of lino or wood for making block prints, I use offcuts of ‘Foamex’ signwriters’ foam board, which local firms throw out, so it’s free AND recycled. It isn’t easy to cut with conventional cutting tools as the blades need frequent sharpening, which I do with a leather Slip Strop, but it’s very easy toContinue reading “Things to Do With a Four Inch Screw”
Upside Down Model and Why Things Cost an Arm and a Leg!
I like a challenge when I’m at life drawing and enjoy things like extreme foreshortening and drawing hands and feet, which I think are probably the most difficult parts of the human body to sketch. Now and again we get a model willing to go that bit further and do a more challenging pose,Continue reading “Upside Down Model and Why Things Cost an Arm and a Leg!”
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”
scribblah 