Husb and I spent a few days in The Lake District last week, in the lovely little town of Ulverston. Husb joined some of our young relatives on the climbing wall. The technique is called bouldering and I’d never heard of it before. Of course, I had to have a scribble. It was a great opportunity to catch people in odd poses and also a good exercise in speed drawing.
It’s Saturday/Caturday once again and here’s my earliest drawing of Sparta Puss, when she was a little kitten (she’s 13 now). A friend noticed the sinister arrangement of fur on her forehead, it looks a bit like a skull head. She nicknamed her “The Third Kitten of the Apocalypse”. Luckily the strange markings changed as she grew and she no longer looks demonic!
This is the last of the outdoor sketches I did in my recent stay in The Lake District. We stopped a while up in the mountains while younger relatives swam in the river – it was WAY too cold for me – so I sat and sketched with Derwent Inktense blocks into a Khadi landscape sketchbook with a bit of help from a reservoir water pen. The rocky outcrops formed strange vertical lines scattered across the land. The sky was glowering and grey as a thunderstorm approached but at the same time, strong sunlight hit the grass, making it glow with different greens.
With Husb in The Lake District and there are so many mountains I don’t have to search for them. I’m drawing so many that I could almost do it with my eyes shut!
Husb and I spent a few days in The Lake District, visiting people and enjoying the beauty and quiet of the place. I took my Derwent Inktense blocks, a landscape Khadi sketchbook, a Daler Rowney reservoir brush and sat a while sketching.
First off, I did a quick sketch with the Inktense blocks, using them like pastels (above). Then I used a reservoir brush to apply water and develop a wash. At the end, I brushed some more water onto some blank bits and drew straight into the wet paper with the Inktense, which gives a much stronger colour.
Husb and I went to The Lyric Theatre in Carmarthen last week to see “Operation Julie – A Rock Musical” – it was brilliant. It’s based on a true story that happened in Wales in the 1970s and the audience was mostly – erm – of a certain age – like me and Husb 😀 And as it happens, both the people I scribbled from the audience were older men with a lot of facial hair. It suits my scribbly style.
The performance was delivered brilliantly by the cast from Theatr naNog, who are exceptional musicians as well as actors.
Husb and I went along to Carmarthen last Friday evening, to the Lyric Theatre to see Theatr naNog’s new show, Operation Julie – a Rock Musical. It was FANTASTIC! Of course, I had to have a scribble of the audience – with a ballpoint pen into my leatherbound A5 sketchbook.
Billed as “Breaking Bad meets The Good Life in a psychedelic true story from the hillsides of rural Wales“, it’s based on a true story of some hippy chemists who decided to turn the whole world onto LSD back in the mid-1970s and established a drug production factory out in the wilds of West Wales, which supplied around 90% of the LSD in the UK and reached about 100 countries.
The police undercover operation, which ran for two and a half years, was named Operation Julie after one of the Women Police Officers on the case, Sergeant Julie Taylor and still remains the biggest drug bust in the world.
It’s Saturday / Caturday again and here’s an archive kitty drawing. This naughty cat is a very young Sparta Puss and Husb caught her expression perfectly. He used a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 with a free drawing app called “Markers”.
I’ve done a little bit more work on this painted portrait I started a while back. It’s based on sketchbook drawings of my young relative. It’s been quite a learning experience as I’ve only started painting seriously since the Covid19 lockdown started – I’m a printmaker and scribbler. But I’m pleased with the way it’s gone. Her face looks too old and needs a tiny bit of tweaking and her hand needs finishing off.
I’m carrying on working into my sketchbooks, developing the drawings in a way I’ve never done before. I used to scribble, turn the page, then forget them. I did a series of sketches a theatrical event about 4 years ago, Now The Hero / Nawr Yr Arwr. The performers / dancers were enveloped in a dark, bloody space and I’m trying to recapture that sinister and frightening atmosphere, working through the drawings one by one, yet keeping them together.
The original is in a Khadi long format sketchbook with heavily textured paper, and I’m using Derwent Inktense blocks to add the colour.
scribblah 