Category Archives: Travel drawings

The Last Of The Stones

Here are the last couple of drawings from my weekend sketching ancient burial chambers in North Pembrokeshire. This one at Pentre Ifan is drawn in charcoal, carbon and white conte crayon onto Fabriano Accademica that I had marbled with black oil paint mixed with turpentine.       Here’s the dolmen drawn over a previousContinue reading “The Last Of The Stones”

Scribbling Sacred Stones

Here’s the fourth ancient burial site I drew over the weekend on my visit to ancestral graves in North Pembrokeshire. It’s a beautiful little chambered tomb called Carreg Samson, near Abercastle. The dolmen looks out across The Irish Sea from a farmer’s clifftop field in a glorious setting. It’s around 5,000 years old and is theContinue reading “Scribbling Sacred Stones”

The Three Tombs

Trekking around North Pembrokeshire yesterday, hunting ancient burial sites, took us to Goodwick near Fishguard (what are the fish guarding?) and a bit of a trek along the cliff path towards Strumble Head, through a housing estate and along an overgrown path between back gardens and a barbed wire fence keeping goats at bay toContinue reading “The Three Tombs”

Experiments At Pentre Ifan

I spend a couple of days in Pembrokeshire drawing dolmens. I managed to get to 4 sites and did some sketching in the field, not easy as I forgot to take my drawing board so I was drawing on grass or even the stones themselves. I tried out some different techniques. These first two drawingsContinue reading “Experiments At Pentre Ifan”

The Dragon, The Star And The Crescent Moon

Back in April 2014 I travelled to Pakistan with another Swansea Printmaker to do a residency at the Zaira Zaka Print Studio near Rawalpindi. It was an amazing and exhausting experience – jet lag, culture shock, a visit to the ancient monuments at Taxila; working day and night in the studio with my fellow artistsContinue reading “The Dragon, The Star And The Crescent Moon”

The Carved Elephant – A Drypoint Etching

I have been doing some printmaking at The Bagpuss Window, the temporary artspace in Swansea’s High Street, making a little edition of miniature drypoints (similar to etchings). I set up a printing area around the little etching press, with an inking table, a blotting table and a drying table. I measured and ripped 8 piecesContinue reading “The Carved Elephant – A Drypoint Etching”

Emerging Heads

  I’ve spent two days working with the 15 Hundred Lives art collective in the Creative Bubble artspace, giving the public open access to our working processes and at the same time putting the finishing touches to the last pieces of work for our upcoming exhibition at Oriel Ceri Richards. Here I’m drawing onto vintageContinue reading “Emerging Heads”

Grow Up, Step Up

  I’ve been working on a series of tiny reduction relief prints and last week I printed the first colour. Today I began cutting the second colour from the blocks. This is called the reduction or ‘suicide’ method as you systematically destroy the block leaving no room for error. I was chatting to an experiencedContinue reading “Grow Up, Step Up”

Lots Of Linos

I’ve been working at Swansea Print Workshop for most of the week, printing the first colour in a series of reduction lino prints. We printmakers often call this the ‘suicide’ method because you don’t use separate blocks for each colour, instead you cut away the first colour, print it, then cut away the second colour,Continue reading “Lots Of Linos”