A Century Of The Gorsedd Stone Circle

Husb and I went to Singleton Park today to the celebration of the centenary of Swansea’s Gorsedd Stone Circle. For many years, the National Eisteddfod of Wales erected a stone circle in each town or city in which the event took place (it moves yearly), but they’re expensive so for the past couple of decades, a temporary fibreglass travelling circle is set up and dismantled each year. Here’s a list of the Gorsedd circles and their location, there are lots of them. Husb brought some camping chairs, they were quite comfy so I had a scribble, looking at two of the stones. I enjoyed all the mark-making for the trees in the background.

Slow Selfie In Progress

I started a self-portrait today. This is about an hour’s work, maybe a bit less. Still a lot more to go. I did it as a demonstration piece when I was teaching at GS Artists’ weekly arts group, the 9to90 Creative Community. We’re doing self-portraits for an upcoming exhibition and these will be finished at the next session, in a week’s time.

Advanced Scribbling

I did a very quick scribble of a building when I was out and about a few weeks ago, just a few minutes to capture the outline and some key features. Today I spent a little while working into it, making a range of marks with a ballpoint pen. I find that mark-making is very relaxing, building up layers of textures really gets me in the zone.

Sketchbook Archives: 38

Back to January 2014 for my archives this week, and I did a lot of animal drawings. That’s unusual for me, unless it’s cats and the occasional bird. I don’t normally draw other critters. This was a public drawing event, I like to stick newspapers to walls and draw on them with charcoal. My hair wasn’t grey then!!!!

Carving Tattooed Legs.

I’m working on some small blocks of grey lino, making art for the forthcoming “Welsh Miniprint” exhibition.

This is based on many drawings I’ve done of legs at heavy metal gigs. It’s very small so I’m using my tiniest Flexcut gouge to carve the detail of the tattoos.

#Caturday Saturday

I did some a small edition of four prints from my newest little linocut at Swansea Print Workshop. I printed in black Caligo Cranfield SafeWash onto Hereford Book paper and for this one I used some handmade mulberry paper in a rich gold colour for chine collé. The model is our little rescue cat, Bill aka William ChatNoir, trying, and succeeding in scrounging a bit of bacon.

Continuous Line…

Saw these two chatting in the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery the other day so I scribbled them! I used a continuous line technique which I find easier for working out perspective and scale. I used a black ballpoint pen into my A5 cloth-bound sketchbook.

The Tea Cake Kitty…

On the left, the grey lino block inked and ready to print.

I did some proof prints from my newest little linocut today, at Swansea Print Workshop. I printed in black Caligo Cranfield SafeWash onto Hereford Book paper and for this one I used a Tunnock’s Tea Cake wrapper for chine collé. The model is our little rescue cat, Bill aka William ChatNoir. She was trying to scrounge some bacon. She succeeded.

Sketchbook Archives: 37

Some scribbles out and about in January 2014. The colourful image bottom right is a reworking of an earlier sketch, I redrew it onto a digital transfer print.

More Gallery Bonces…

Here are a couple more heads from the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery at a recent talk about the late Welsh artist Esther Grainger by Andrew Green.