Category Archives: life drawing

Back To Basics

I’ve been trying to push out of my comfort zone at Life Drawing group for a while now. Last night I pulled out a piece of very heavy and textured hand-made paper, a bit bigger than A4, that I’d prepared with acrylic gesso overlaid, when dry, with compressed charcoal and then sealed with spray fixative.Continue reading “Back To Basics”

Vivid Pink

I’ve been re-using some experimental work I’d been doing, that I wasn’t happy with. I’ve been taking the boards, prepared with rhodamine red and lemon yellow oil pigment, to different places. I took one to my weekly life-drawing session yesterday and drew this 30 minute pose in black and white conte crayon with a fewContinue reading “Vivid Pink”

Cake And Foreshortening

So this evening I took myself off to life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop, bearing an abundance of cakes for our tea break. How civilised is that? I did a couple of sketches in oil bars that I was quite pleased with, then we had this pose to finish up with after tea and cake.Continue reading “Cake And Foreshortening”

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”