out and about – Page 99

Faces At The Folk Club

Some more scribbles from the Loughor Folk Club the other evening. Loughor is an interesting little fishing village on the estuary of the River Loughor / Afan Llwchwr.

Today, Husb and I went to help with the annual maintenance at the labyrinth in Rosehill Quarry, installed back in 1987 by Bob Shaw and Dewi Bowen. It’s based on an ancient Cretan design and is cut into the grass, the incised path filled with crushed cockle shells that are a by-product of the localContinue reading “The Labyrinth”

Scribbling Yes Cymru

Husb and I endured eleven hours on a coach with the smelliest toilets in the universe on Saturday to get to and from the YES Cymru march in Caernarfon. It was amazing! Over 8,000 people crammed into the tiny cobbled streets and little market square, enjoying the party atmosphere and listening to inspiring speakers. ItContinue reading “Scribbling Yes Cymru”

Proofing The Stream Bed

A few weeks ago I went on a field trip up into the Brecon Beacons with colleagues from Swansea University’s FIRE Lab and while they studied the environment in culverts, I sketched. I really liked the abstraction of this drawing of a stream bed so I cut it into a block of vinyl andContinue reading “Proofing The Stream Bed”

My Geographic Palette #4 – Graphite

The next one out of my geographic palette is graphite, a slightly greasy, slightly soluble solid black pigment and mineral found in The Lake District near Keswick, which is where I bought some nice chunky sticks of it and a whole load of top-quality graphite pencils. Not far from Keswick, at Seathwaite, is an oldContinue reading “My Geographic Palette #4 – Graphite”

My Geographic Palette #2 – Bideford Black

So, day 2 of drawing from my geographic palette. This is Bideford Black, an unique oily carbon-based pigment from North Devon, where is sits in the ground next to anthracite coal. It was mined for about 200 years up until the late 1960s but lost out to cheaper competitors and the mines closed. IContinue reading “My Geographic Palette #2 – Bideford Black”

My Geographic Palette #1 – Charcoal

This is my first tryout with my geographic palette, a drawing based on a sketch I did en plein air on a field trip with colleagues from Swansea University’s FIRE Lab a couple of months ago when we went off exploring culverts up in the Brecon Beacons. The charcoal I bought a fewContinue reading “My Geographic Palette #1 – Charcoal”

My Geographic Palette

I’m thinking about how to develop from the sketches I’ve done on a couple of field trips with colleagues in the FIRE Lab team and, as the research project is about ecosystems and environment, I thought I’d try as much as possible to use natural earths, plants and minerals in my artworks, so I’m puttingContinue reading “My Geographic Palette”

Baggy Waders

I did some quick sketches en plein air at Brynmill Stream the other day, where some colleagues from the FIRE Lab were setting up an experiment in the water. I was fascinated by the baggy waders that they were wearing, I’d never seen any close to before. I did a couple of very quickContinue reading “Baggy Waders”

En Plein Air

And the final scribbles from Saturday’s carnival in Bath. Drawing moving figures is a challenge but really good practice and I don’t normally get the chance to do it. That’s one of the advantages of drawing en plein air.