Tatts And Transparencies

I’m preparing a whole new set of photopolymer plate intaglios. I’ve chosen the sketches I want to make plates of, mostly from my sketchbooks and now I’m drawing them onto small (A6) transparencies. These two here are onto Mark Resist. It’s considerably cheaper than TruGrain and more stable than tracing parchment, especially with wet media.Continue reading “Tatts And Transparencies”

Oily Scribbling

I went out of my comfort zone again tonight at life drawing and used my new yellow ochre oil bar to lay a scribbled base on top of an A3 card I’d prepared with 2 coats of acrylic gesso. I’d normally work with very fine pens, doing lots of linear detail. I prefer oilbars toContinue reading “Oily Scribbling”

Comfort Food

Second day of Spring and what am I cooking for tea? Casserole and rice pudding. Proper Winter fodder because of the torrential rain, gale force winds and freezing temperature outside. No chance of a nice light salad for some time to come. Here’s another sketch I did last night at the life drawing group. ItContinue reading “Comfort Food”

Renaissance Head

Just got back from life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop. Filthy night, really cold, pouring rain and blowing a gale……and today’s the first day of Spring. Joke! Anyway, our model is great to draw, he has a very Renaissance head and excellent muscle and bone definition. I previously used up some offcuts of mount (matte)Continue reading “Renaissance Head”

More Manky Woman Artist #MWA

To carry on with yesterday’s theme of Manky Women artists, here are the steps to making a manier noir drawing which is deliciously grubby. I started by stretching large pieces of Fabriano 240gsm paper onto a wall, soaking them lightly. When they were dry I gave them 2 coats of acrylic gesso, leaving them toContinue reading “More Manky Woman Artist #MWA”

Manky Women Artists #MWA

I don’t often go on Twitter because it steals my life away, but I was on it for a while earlier today and shared a bit of a joke with some other women artists. We were all tomboys as kids and now we’re all grown up, we don’t do frocks and stilettos, fancy nails andContinue reading “Manky Women Artists #MWA”

Black On Black

First off, Wales won the Six Nations Cup in the International Rugby today. A great end to a fab week. At the start Husb and I were in London for a few days, taking in some exhibitions. The Ice Age Art show at the British Museum was fantastic and it’s influence stayed with me duringContinue reading “Black On Black”

A Bit Different

I tried something a bit different at life drawing tonight. I’d prepared some small scraps of card with white acrylic gesso and Indian ink before I went to Iceland a few months ago but I didn’t use them all. “Waste not, want not” as my Nana used to say. I started with black and whiteContinue reading “A Bit Different”

Bits And Pieces

It’s tempting to try and do a complete drawing during the weekly Life Drawing sessions as I use so many of these sketches to develop into monotypes and mixed media pieces. But I also want to use the time to practice my craft and sometimes I focus on different parts of the model rather thanContinue reading “Bits And Pieces”

Culling!

Life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop tonight and I scribbled over a drawing I did a while back that hadn’t worked out. I used to be much more precious about my drawings and have portfolios stuffed full of them, waiting for a cull. But the last couple of years I’ve been ruthless. I’m using topContinue reading “Culling!”