Husb and I went to Hangar 18 at the weekend to see an alien band called Henge. They were brilliant – sort of cosmic psychedelic high energy rave-rock with a big dollop of humour. I did a scribble of the lead singer. I’m loving getting back to going to gigs, I realise how much I missed it during almost 2 years of lockdown.
It’s #StandingStoneSunday again and here’s another of the glorious monuments I drew while I was out and about with pre-historian Dewi Bowen and film maker Melvyn Williams, hunting Welsh megaliths. This day, we stayed close to home and started out by visiting the local Dylan Thomas comprehensive school, where there is a fine Bronze Age standing stone, the Cockett Valley stone, at the far end of the playing fields. Its history is shrouded in mystery as it was undiscovered for thousands of years until the end of the 1970s, when woodland clearance revealed it under many generations of bramble growth. It’s now out in the open, overlooking the small river snaking along Cockett Valley.
It’s Saturday / Caturday again and here’s one from my kitty archives. One day Sparta Puss stayed still long enough for me to do quite a detailed drawing of her, perched on top of our vintage glass display cabinet that we found in the street one day. Not sure if it’s a 1930s one or a later, possibly 1950s copy. There’s a cyanotype print I did of Husb on the left.
I have some of my printmaking in a group exhibition opening tomorrow at The Print Studio in Ruthin.
My monotype about the bedroom tax, based on an original sketchbook drawing at a demonstration, is part of the main show and I have a selection of lino prints in the browser. So, if you fancy a day trip to Ruthin (it’s a lovely place), the exhibition runs until the first week in January.
Sitting on the settee the other evening, scribbling one of the corners in the room. I try to sketch every day, don’t always manage it, and sometimes I get bogged down in trying to find a “suitable” subject, when really it doesn’t matter. I should just draw what’s there in front of me. There’s always something interesting … a texture, the way a piece of fabric falls, some shadows. It’s important to appreciate the little, seemingly irrelevant things.
Had a quick scribble when my young nephew called around the other day. He was lolling on the little settee and there was a nice bit of foreshortening going on, so I sketched him. The word “lolling” means to lounge and the Internet reckons it originates in late Middle English. But there’s also a Welsh word “(y) lolfa” which means “(the) lounge”. I wonder if one came from the other language or if they both originated somewhere else completely?
A few days ago, I recycled some paintings I didn’t like, and today I used one to start a new painting. The surface is very sculptural now and I scraped two layers of paint on, the first coat in cadmium orange and the second in mars black (Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic). I’m working from one of my photos, taken in the summer, but at this stage it’s all about colour and texture, not detail.
Already I’m liking it way more than the original one that I painted over!
Not exactly a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, but I like to pop into the cafe upstairs in the local Waterstones bookshop for a cuppa and a scribble from time to time. People there are usually absorbed in whatever book they’ve bought and it’s easier to draw them. I took a few seconds to sketch these heads in my sketchbook.
This week’s #StandingStoneSunday megalith is the Is-coed stone near Ferryside in Carmarthenshire. I was travelling around drawing Bronze Age and Neolithic monuments with filmmaker Melvyn Williams and pre-historian Dewi Bowen a while back, drawing the sites that will feature in Dewi’s upcoming book based on the tale of Y Twrch Trwyth in the Mabinogion.
It’s Saturday/Caturday once again and here’s one from 10 years ago, with Little Ming dozing in front, Sparta Puss snoozing behind. Little Ming is no longer with us, she was a delightful cat that Husb and I rescued from neglect. She was very ill and not expected to survive but pulled through and lived with us happily for nearly 18 years.
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