Pictures For An Exhibition.

Laminated….

I did a whole load of drawings at Crowleys Rock Bar in the Swansea Fringe back before Christmas and they’re going to be in an exhibition at another rock music venue, The Bunkhouse, in Swansea! Cool! The drawings are in my sketchbook which I don’t want to dismember, so I scanned and printed a selection at size A4 and laminated the prints, so they’ll be tough enough to withstand whatever a rock venue throws at them.

Sparta Puss is not impressed.

The exhibition opens this Friday, 20th, from 6pm and there’s also a ticketed gig featuring Mojo Jnr and support bands.

Video here …

The Columbian

At Swansea Print Workshop.

I had a quick scribble this afternoon, trying out a mixture of white conté crayon (used dry) and black Derwent Inktense (used wet) into a black paper sketchbook. The white worked well, but the black Inktense was lost and it made a bit of a mess with the white conté. So I went back in with a black conté to finish it off. The subject is the 1855 Columbian Press at Swansea Print Workshop. Which is probably my favourite press in the world.

Having A Doodle

Taking my blocks for a walk.

Having a bit of a play with my Inktense blocks by Derwent onto black paper. I wanted to see if they would actually show up on a dark background and they did, really strong coverage too. I was just having a doodle, it’s not meant to look like anything.

#StandingStoneSunday 17

Parc y Meirw, Pembs.

It’s #StandingStoneSunday again and here’s a gate stone in a place called Parc Y Meirw (Field of the Dead) that I visited a while back with Dewi Bowen and Melvyn Williams. Sometimes ancient stones can be found in hedges and used as gateposts and this is one of a group in a hedge that aligns with the moon’s highest point in the sky, which happens every 18.6 years; this cycle can be used for predicting eclipses.

I drew with conte crayon, carbon and Daler Rowney artists’ soft pastels onto Fabriano paper prepared with gesso, charcoal and my home-made walnut ink.

#Caturday Archives 15

Scratching those curtains.

It’s #Caturday / Saturday again. Once upon a time, Sparta Puss was a little kitten. A naughty little kitten. And small enough to run up the curtains. One day, I caught her soft-furnishing shenanigans on camera as she clawed her way up and down some voiles with a spiral pattern. I made a series of woodcut prints from some of the photos – this is the first of the set.

It May Be Finished!

The Girl In The Fly Agaric Hat.

I think this little painting may be just about finished. I’ll sleep on it, but I don’t think I’ll be doing much more, maybe a little softening on the arm. I’ve never done anything like this before, working directly from a sketch and splashing paint randomly in layers, scattering rice into pools of watery pigment, and finally a very small amount of detailing. I used Liquitex Heavy Body acrylics in Indian Yellow, Naphtha Red and Phthalo Blue (red shade) for most of the painting, with some small touches of Dioxazine Purple and Titanium White, which is more of an ecru, at the end.

I might just soften this arm a little.

Here are the steps I went through to get here ….

Going Psychedelic!

Three transparent glazes.

I’ve swirled a final watery paint layer onto my two girls – this time in Pthalo Blue (red shade) from Liquitex, tipping the canvas so the paint ran across randomly. I dabbed at parts with a paper kitchen towel to reveal the yellows, reds and oranges beneath and threw more rice onto it, forming a sort of halo around the girls.

It’s psychedelic, which is very fitting as one of them is wearing a fly agaric mushroom hat – it has a reputation as a psychedelic substance – but it’s potentially dangerous too. This random approach to applying paint is reminiscent of some of the techniques the Surrealists used.

Detail showing the texture of the rice.

Layering Transparency.

Randomness.

After laying down a translucent ground of Indian Yellow acrylic paint (Liquitex Heavy Body), I brushed some watered down transparent Naphthol Red (a hot, bright red) and tipped the canvas so it formed runs and drips across the yellow areas. As an experiment I threw some grains of rice across it to see what would happen, I want to get random textures instead of a uniform, smooth surface.

So where do I go from here?

The Start Of A Painting.

Girl In The Magic Mushroom Hat.

I did a sketch at a fundraising event last week and I like it so much that I’m going to have a bash at making a painting from it. I don’t normally paint from sketches, although I often develop printmaking projects from my sketchbooks, so I’m going to have to approach this in a very different way, I think. I scanned and printed it at size A4 and transferred it to a reclaimed canvas.

I started by roughly painting on an Indian Yellow base colour in Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic. I can see the texture of the old painting underneath and some bits of the original show through like ghosts. Now …. where to go from here?

#StandingStoneSunday 16

Drawing Saint Elfys (Elvis) burial chamber.

It’s #StandingStoneSunday again and here’s a drawing I made during a 2 day trip to Pembrokeshire to draw more ancient Neolithic monuments on my quest across South Wales with Rhondda-born archaeologist Dewi Bowen and Swansea film maker Melvyn Williams, hunting the wild megalith, accompanied by my portable drawing board, portfolio of Fabriano paper and a bag full of assorted artist’s materials.

The first stone we came to is the burial chamber of Saint Elfys (Elvis). It’s near Saint David’s which is not too far from the Preseli Mountains. Elfys Preseli. Hmmmm! I wonder if Elvis Presley had Welsh ancestors?

A detail of St. Elfys stone.

Dewi was researching his latest book on Neolithic monuments, which is nearly finished, and Melvyn made a documentary film of our literary and artistic adventures.