Husb and I popped out for a cuppa this morning, round the corner. I had a scribble. There was an extremely tall and thin woman in the coffee shop and it was weird drawing her because I had to keep checking the proportions of the sketch. But she really was that tall and thin. I used a ballpoint pen into my A6 bound sketchbook with a quirky factory print on the front.
Husb and I regularly babysit one of our very young relatives and last week I took him on his first trip to the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery. There’s a fabulous exhibition from their archives at the moment – a wonderful and quirky selection of artwork.
I find babies very hard to draw. The proportions of their faces are really weird – they’re like little aliens. And they don’t stop wriggling. I tried my best, sketching quickly using the continuous line method. Maybe I should try when he’s asleep. Anyway, I took him round the exhibition, mostly I let him crawl – he was really quick on the polished floors. The bit he liked best though was when we went to the (excellent, new) cafe on the ground floor and he crawled over to the big window that looks out onto the street, pulled himself up and gave the window a good licking. I tried my best.
I spent a couple fo hours at the Glynn Vivian art gallery on Saturday morning, drawing at a spoken word event, @peoplespeakup, which was part of the Swansea Fringe, with Rufus Mufasa, David Pitt and Eleanor Shaw amongst others. I like drawing in public, I think it’s good for people to be able to see how an artist works. When people go into a gallery and see perfect works of art on a white wall, they don’t get to appreciate all the hard work, practice, mistakes and rubbish drawings that preceded it.
I did some warm up drawings in my sketchbook, using a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen and the continuous line technique. This helped me to centre myself in the space and pick up on the ambience of the surroundings.
I was dog-sitting last Friday and went down to the Climate Change strike to do some sketches en plein air. I like drawing crowds, it’s a good exercise. The dog had different ideas though.
She’s only a year old and still very excitable and because she’s so cute she was getting loads of attention. There were hundreds of children so I should have anticipated it. It made sketching very difficult, with her tugging on her lead all the time and people fussing her. Not ideal conditions to have a scribble. I did my best.
Here’s the little tyrant.
I went to GS Artists on High Street earlier to a meeting planning to pull together a group of local artists, a union or cooperative to represent our interests. It was a good start, lots of ideas but a lot of work ahead of us because most artists are self-employed and often working in isolation. We’re also prone to exploitation – so much pressutre to work for very little or even nothing! “You’ll get exposure” they say. You can die of exposure. It’s surprising the number of allegedly reputable organisations that try to get artists to work for no pay – or maybe it isn’t so surprising. We live in a society where artists and the arts are so undervalued.
Anyway, I had a scribble. Using ballpoint pen with the continuous line technique.
Here’s a couple of ‘blind contour’ sketches I did recently on a field trip to Craig-y-Nos with colleagues from the FIRE Lab. I did the sketches without looking at the paper and without taking my conté crayon off the paper. Forces me to focus on what’s absolutely essential and gives the linework a lot of life and dynamism.
I am currently artist in residence with The Fire Laboratory at Swansea University and have been going on field trips with scientific colleagues along the course of The River Tawe.
Another of my quick sketches from my field trip with FIRE Lab colleagues a couple of weeks ago. I like doing these very quick sketchbook studies, they’re dynamic because I have to work so fast.
I am currently artist in residence with The Fire Laboratory at Swansea University and have been going on field trips with scientific colleagues along the course of The River Tawe.
Husb was pitching an idea at the RSA Engage event at Swansea’s Cinema & Co this evening. The RSA is holding 20 Engage events across the UK which give people an opportunity to pitch an idea they want to develop in their local community, to get support from an informed audience and make new connections to get their idea off the ground. There were 9 ideas pitched this evening, all of them excellent.
Of course, I had a scribble!
Husb pitched his notion to fill the enormous roof of Swansea Market with stained glass. He did a spoof mock-up for the cover of his recently published book but the image has generated such a lot of interest that he decided to see if there was any possibility in moving the idea forward. There is! He now has some advisors and collaborators on board.
Swansea Market is the largest covered market in Wales and the roof is an enormous single span steel and glass construction. There has been a market in Swansea since the 1600s and one on this site since 1830. The present one was built in 1961 as the previous one was destroyed by bombs in World War 2.
Alongside making cyanotypes with my colleagues on a recent field trip, I also did some drawings. Here’s one at Craig-y-Nos in conté crayons – black, white and sanguine into an A4 sketchbook made from brown parcel paper. It took about 3 minutes and I did it mostly without looking at the paper. It forced me to focus on the essentials in the drawing. Steph and Joelle are looking at shrimp in the River Tawe.
I am currently artist in residence with The Fire Laboratory at Swansea University and have been going on field trips with scientific colleagues along the course of The River Tawe.
Husb and I went to the Annibyniaeth march in Merthyr Tydfil today, it was great. There were 5,300 people marching for independence and 53 dogs. Of course I had to have a scribble – of the people and the dogs. The people stayed still for longer!
Tydfil was a daughter of King Brychan of Brycheiniog who was martyred in the area by pagans around 480 CE and the place was named Merthyr Tydfil in her honour. In modern Welsh, merthyr means martyr but in old Welsh it means a church built over the relics of a martyr.
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