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]”

Babysitting the Art at Bus Stop Cinema

I volunteer regularly to babysit exhibitions at Elysium Gallery and it’s a chance to catch up on admin on the laptop like cataloguing photos and writing artist statements. This week it’s Bus Stop Cinema, featuring 13 films from international artists, an eclectic mix of art, drama, animation and parody. It’s fun babysitting in the darkContinue reading “Babysitting the Art at Bus Stop Cinema”

Going Over To The Dark Side: Experimenting with Acrylic Paint.

Acrylic sketch: Theresa in jeans. I’m not a natural born painter – I like scribbling and printmaking but I’ve recently been going over to the dark side and experimenting with paint, with varying success. Watercolours and Oils are a joy to work with and I’ve had one attempt at using Gouache, which I quite liked.Continue reading “Going Over To The Dark Side: Experimenting with Acrylic Paint.”

Total Artgeek – Soft Pastels: Portrait of an Elder Man

  I don’t often do portraits, preferring nudes and cats, but I’ve been trying harder to get a likeness over the past year because it’s good discipline and forces me to be not only very observant but also very accurate, which feeds into my professional development. This is John, a life model I often workContinue reading “Total Artgeek – Soft Pastels: Portrait of an Elder Man”

Mixing It: Print, Drawing, Collage

  I was editioning a block print of a head of an elderly man developed from a drawing from my trip to Pakistan a few years ago and had a bit of printers ink left over so I tried printing the block onto odd bits of paper I had around the place. I had aContinue reading “Mixing It: Print, Drawing, Collage”