Let’s See Where It Takes Me …..

scrapbook

I’m a bit old school when it comes to sketchbooks, I take the term literally and I sketch in them. But one of my lockdown challenges is to try working differently, to get out of my comfort zone, so I’ve been rethinking how to use a sketchbook. I had a few A3 brown paper sketchbooks knocking around that I haven’t used because the paper is poor quality. And I am one of the decreasing numbers of people who still buys a newspaper (the ‘i’) so I thought I’d start cutting interesting images and pieces of text out of the papers and stick them into the sketchbook, as reference / source materials. I’m not sure where it’s going to lead, I haven’t done this before, but it’s already generating some ideas. Let’s see ……..

 

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artifacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left and to see the complete image.

In this one, I combined snippets of a bird and discarded plastic with the image of a bug, part of the Museum’s fascinating vintage collection.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

 

The Underlying Barbie-ness

cezanne still life 6

I started this fake Cézanne last Friday at the lunchtime Cheese and Wine Painting Club on Facebook. It’s my 17th fake – one of the lockdown challenges I set myself was to improve my painting skills and I love studying the work of other artists.

I began with a pink background, which was a bit of a shock at first but was soon muted by layers of colour which took on the intense warmth of the underlying Barbie-ness. Another couple of hours should see it finished. I’m using Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic paint onto a primed canvas from Wilkinsons. This particular canvas was recycled with a layer of gesso after I rejected the previous week’s fake 😀

Next up at the Cheese and Wine Painting Club is Monet’s “Cliffs At Etretat”. Come and join in, it’s fun and you get to learn a lot. Suitable for beginners and children.

 

 

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artifacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left and to see the complete image.

In this one, I combined snippets of a bird and discarded plastic with the image of a bug, part of the Museum’s fascinating vintage collection.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

A Bit Renaissance-y

tonya 60 mins b

Here’s the last of the life drawings I did at Swansea Print Workshop last week. It’s a 60 minute pose and I used black paper with conté crayons in black, white and sanguine. Our model wore a long scarf draped over her head and shoulders and combined with the materials, it’s all a bit Renaissance-y. Which I like.

tonya 60 mins aHere’s an earlier stage of the drawing.

 

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artifacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left and to see the complete image.

In this one, I combined snippets of a bird and discarded plastic with the image of a bug, part of the Museum’s fascinating vintage collection.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

In Praise Of Life Models

tonya 30 mins b

The life models who pose at Swansea Print Workshop are experienced, patient and also physically and mentally fit – you have to be in order to keep still for anything up to an hour. I’ve done it a few times myself and it’s really hard going. Our model this week held this pose on her knees for a full thirty minutes. She’s terrific. I used willow charcoal onto vintage paper – it’s not watermarked so I don’t know the maker. It’s very smooth and the charcoal smudged and skidded across the top of the paper rather than being held by a textured surface. It took a bit of getting used to but I worked with the smudginess in the end. I love the foreshortening on this pose, the large looming feet.

 

 

 

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artifacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left and to see the complete image.

In this one, I combined snippets of a bird and discarded plastic with the image of a bug, part of the Museum’s fascinating vintage collection.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

Timed poses

Tonya 5 mins

At the life drawing group at Swansea Print Workshop we start with a few short timed poses to warm up and get the measure of our model. Here are the two five minute poses we began with – our model is terrific, she’s been with us for years.

tonya 30 mins

Here’s one of the 30 minute poses done in willow charcoal onto vintage paper by WH Saunders.

 

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artifacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left and to see the complete image.

In this one, I combined snippets of a bird and discarded plastic with the image of a bug, part of the Museum’s fascinating vintage collection.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

 

Life Drawing, Cheese And Cats Protection

Tonya 10m

Just back from life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop. It’s an intense 3 hours and it’s late now so I’ll post the rest tomorrow.

And this came earlier – a lovely delivery from The Welsh Cheese Company … they use sheeps wool for packaging and our local Cats Protection recycle it for insulation for the feral cat shelters they make from old wooden pallets.

 

 

 

 

 

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artifacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left and to see the complete image.

In this one, I combined snippets of a bird and discarded plastic with the image of a bug, part of the Museum’s fascinating vintage collection.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

A Faking Failure

goodwin 4

I’ve been faking paintings for about 4 months now, one of my lockdown challenges is to improve my painting skills. This last one (number 17) defeated me. Some of the others have been tough but this one, the original is by William Goodwin, is the first I’ve thought was a complete failure.  I just couldn’t take to it at all. So, waste not, want not – I painted the whole thing out with gesso and I’ll start another one with the Cheese and Wine Painting Club on Facebook on Friday. This week is a Cezanne still life. Looking forward to it.

 

 

 

 

 

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artifacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left and to see the complete image.

In this one, I combined snippets of a bird and discarded plastic with the image of a bug, part of the Museum’s fascinating vintage collection.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

 

Finishing A Sketchbook

1cefnbrynbrain

A few weeks into the pandemic lockdown, when it became obvious that it was going to last a long while, I set myself some lockdown challenges. One is to improve my painting skills, which I’ve been doing with the Friday Cheese and Wine Painting Club on Facebook, practising faking well known paintings. Another is to do Tai Chi every day, which I’ve pretty much managed. A third is to have cold showers – my family have all got into Wim Hof so I’m giving it a try – it’s hell! And I also wanted to practise charcoal drawing, something I’ve avoided for years because I didn’t like the messiness. A friend gave me a lovely Khadi sketchbook for Xmas, the paper is heavy and rough and it really suits my Daler Rowney willow charcoal.

Husb and I took a drive to the Brecon Beacons on Saturday and stopped the car to look at the magnificent view and I made the last drawing in my book – number 30. The day was brilliantly sunny but also very cold and windy, so the sketch was quick and, well, sketchy. My shadow looms darkly in the bottom left of the scene.

Here’s a short video showing what it’s like drawing at the top of a mountain.

 

 

 

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artifacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left.

In this one, I combined the image of the bird with snippets of text of things my Nana used to say. She used to take me to Swansea Museum a lot when I was small and I could hear her voice in the back of my head as I was sitting and drawing the birds and bugs.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

 

Finally Finished Mockney

mockney fields final

This has taken me ages to finish. It’s a copy of a painting by David Hockney – someone on Facebook, I forget who, called it my Mockney. One of my lockdown challenges has been to improve my painting skills so I joined the Cheese and Wine Painting Club on Facebook and learn by copying a work by a famous artist every Friday lunchtime. The original has so many layers of paint, put on in loads of dots and dashes and that’s why it has taken me so long. I’ve really enjoyed it though, I’ve been completely in the zone with it. I think it’s the 16th I’ve done so far.

 

 

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artifacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left.

In this one, I combined the image of the bird with snippets of text of things my Nana used to say. She used to take me to Swansea Museum a lot when I was small and I could hear her voice in the back of my head as I was sitting and drawing the birds and bugs.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

 

Life Drawing And Local Lockdown

fat dave 8

Here’s the complete set of life drawings I did last week at Swansea Print Workshop with one of our male models. The three below are fast poses, 2 x 5minutes and 1 x 10 minutes. Above are two x 30 minute poses and one of an hour.

fat dave 7

The sessions stopped at the beginning of lockdown in March and we’ve just started having them again, we’ve had two, with very stringent safety factors in place. Unfortunately, we’ve gone back into lockdown locally and we’re not sure if we can keep running them. We’ll find out next week.

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artifacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left.

In this one, I combined the image of the bird with snippets of text of things my Nana used to say. She used to take me to Swansea Museum a lot when I was small and I could hear her voice in the back of my head as I was sitting and drawing the birds and bugs.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.