I prefer to sketch when I’m travelling and take very few photographs because when I look back at photos and drawings, it’s the sketches that put me back into the moment and make the memory more vivid. Here’s a quick sketch outside the UNESCO World Heritage site, Quasayr’ Amra, a desert castle in the north of Jordan, to the eaast of the capital city of Amman.
Husb and I travelled to a lot of fascinating places during our recent trip to Jordan. I did this drawing in Qusayr’ Amra, a desert castle, pleasure palace and UNESCO World Heritage site in the east of the country. It’s about 1,700 years old and it’s interior is covered in magnificent frescoes, unusually for a Moslem country because they accurately represent animals and humans. In this particular one (above), I noticed that she only has three fingers, which is very common in modern cartoons. And the use of patterns in some of the paintings (below) is very contemporary.
Husb and I camped overnight in the Wadi Rum desert last week. The colours were wonderful, so complex. I didn’t have time to do “landscape” paintings so throughout the trip I focused on capturing the colours around me with Winsor & Newton watercolours onto Somerset paper, creating my own locality pallette.
There were camels…. it was like the Lawrence of Arabia film. Wadi Rum is where he did a lot of his shenanigans.
And there were ancient petroglyphs, featuring camels.
I do some artwork when I’m travelling, but there’s no time to do completed pieces. I’m not there to carry on working but also I don’t want to miss the chance to do something creative in a new environment, so this time I decided to try and record the colours of a place, to create a pallete of local colours, using Winsor & Newton Cotman watercolours. Here’s my Dead Sea pallete, on a warm but misty day which made the land and sea look quite smudgey. I’m on a beach in Jordan, looking over to the West Bank.
More amazing stone from the city of Petra in Jordan. This reminds me of a landscape but it’s formed entirely naturally in the rock.
I am artist-in-residence and researcher with a scientific team at Swansea university and here’s a blog about our latest science / art fieldtrip if you fancy a read. Art Up A Mountain
Husb and I have been away for a week, so I haven’t been blogging. We went to Jordan in the Middle East, a beautiful and friendly country. We visited the stone city of Petra – the stone is multi-coloured and stratified and the whole area looks like it’s covered with psychedelic works of art.
I finally stopped working on Michael Sheen lunchtime today – I’ve been stitching him up for a week and a half. In my spare time mind, not 24/7. He’s nestled with all the other Michael Sheens down at GS Artists on Swansea’s High Street right now, waiting for the big exhibition opening this Saturday at 4pm.
Still at it, stitching my portrait of Michael Sheen. Getting there but not got there yet. I must hand it in by lunchtime tomorrow. It’s going everywhere with me at the moment, to the pub, to the art gallery. I’m sitting and stitching like the knitters in front of the guillotine back in the French Revolution.
Yeah you guessed it …. I’m still stitching that portrait of Michael Sheen. He has a mouth now and the beginnings of eyebrows and his face is nearly finished. I think I can get his hair done this evening. I have about 36 hours to finish it.
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