Mess Everywhere

I love my job. I work for a national charity teaching art to adults. Today was my turn to be taught when one of my students demonstrated how to do an acrylic paint pour. What a mess! I managed to drop the pot of black paint and it went everywhere – including up both my arms! It was fun and I like my little canvas, the paint effects are so complex (small detail below). We used Daler Rowney System 3 acrylic paint mixed with PVA glue and a little water onto stretched canvas and a spritz of argon oil at the end.

Squint And Scribble.

Sketching at a Distance.

Here’s a second sketch I made at the Filia 2022 conference yesterday. I was drawing women on the stage a long way away so I had to squint a lot and I couldn’t see much detail. I used ballpoint pen and then added colour washes with Derwent Inktense blocks and a water reservoir brush. This took about 5 minutes, maximum.

Sketching at the conference.

A Beautiful Face.

Just back from the Filia 2022 conference in Cardiff. I did some scribbles of heads around me, in ballpoint pen and Derwent Inktense blocks, applied with a water reservoir brush. Tired now, off for an early night, I think ….

#StandingStoneSunday 10.

Ty’n Y Selar megalith.

It’s #StandingStoneSunday once again and here’s another fine monument I drew on my adventures with pre-historian Dewi Bowen and filmmaker Melvyn Williams. It’s called Ty’n Y Selar and it’s near the M4 motorway. There are a few different ways of spelling it in Cymru, it’s Samson’s Stone in English, here’s a link about it.

Acrylic paint, walnut ink, carbon and soft pastels.

#Caturday Archives 10

Sleepy Scribbles

It’s Saturday #Caturday again and here are some kitty drawings from my sketchbook archives. Sparta Puss was sleeping on my lap so I did a few quick sketches of her, all on the same page, trying to capture the essence of her cattitude rather than doing a detailed drawing. I like the way the scribbles show the turn of a paw, the flick of an ear ….

Detail through Photoshop Gradient Map

Scribbling In Paint.

I’m working on a new portrait of my great-niece. She’s got attitude. I did the preliminary sketch a couple of weeks ago (here). I found a canvas with a failed painting on it and covered it in a thin layer of magenta Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic paint, letting some of the discarded painting come through. Then I used my drawing as reference to quickly scribble the composition in a thin wash of dioxazine purple.

Balloons!

Kids At Play.

Went to a birthday party over the weekend and scribbled some kids playing with balloons. No X Boxes, no smart phones, no expensive toys. Just some balloons. What joy. They move fast, kids do, so it was good practice to sketch them.

Hanging In The Hangar.

Scribbling In The Bar.

I drew these characters the other night, when Husb and I went to Hangar 18 at the weekend to see an alien band called Henge. I like sketching in public, drawing people in their wild state 😀

The Cosmic Alien.

The Lead Alien

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.

The lead alien through a Gradient Map.

#StandingStoneSunday 9

The Secret School Stone.

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. 

Pastels, paint and walnut ink…