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]”
Category Archives: Arty Stuff
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”
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”
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