Tent City

tent city

Back in 2012 I was up in London for a couple of days and looked in on the Occupy London camp outside St. Paul’s Cathedral. I had a scribble, it was a higgledy piggledy mass of multi-coloured tents and ramshackle structures and it was great to draw in my little sketchbook. This is a detail of a larger monotype I’ve just done, based on my original drawing. I’ve used Caligo Cranfield Safe Wash relief ink onto a lovely vintage paper by WH Saunders and various tissues for chine collé to add splashes of colour.

This monotype will appear in my forthcoming exhibition, “Revolting Women” with artist Patricia McKenna-Jones, on International Women’s Day, March 8th at Swansea’s Cinema & Co.

 

 

Vintage Paper

demo 2

Here’s another monotype in progress with chine collé to add colour. I’ve used a beautiful vintage British paper by W. H. Saunders that found its way to me from an elderly retired printmaker and bookbinder via a print dealer and connoisseur. The chine collé is hand-made recycled silk sari paper with lovely fibres running through it.

This will be shown at a new exhibition to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8th at Cinema & Co in Swansea. More about that here...

Splashes Of Colour

demo 1

Here’s a new monotype based on an en plein air sketch I did a while back. I scribbled it into a sketchbook, a demo outside Swansea’s Waterfront Museum about the working conditions of lower-paid staff. I used tissue paper as chine collé to add splashes of colour. I’m doing a series of prints based on my sketches for an exhibition at Swansea’s Cinema & Co on International Women’s Day on March 8th. More about that tomorrow….

 

The Ghosts Of Drawings

mono plate 1

I’ve been busy making monotypes today, ready for International Women’s Day and an exhibition I’m organising with Patricia McKenna Jones. We have both been drawing into our sketchbooks for many years and we’re working some of our sketches up into prints. Here are the ghosts of the drawings on the inked-up Perspex, the prints will be revealed at the exhibition. More on that later.

 

 

 

A Lump Of Carbon

drawing 1

Creativity is a fickle thing, seems to be feast or famine, on a roll or nothing at all. I’m in a nothing phase at the moment so I’m pushing my way though it by just doing stuff at random. Today I grabbed a piece of vintage hand-made paper, really lovely, and a lump of carbon. First of all, I turned the carbon lump on its side and scraped it horizontally across the textured paper, varying the pressure to achieve different tones.
drawing 2

Then I turned it through 90 degrees and using the point of the graphite stick, dragged thin lines up and down the paper. It’s not great art, but it’s necessary to just play sometimes.

 

Too Much Admin…

There’s been so much admin to do the past couple of weeks that I haven’t had time to do much art, but tomorrow I have a whole day for creating. So many ideas in the pipeline….

Meanwhile, here’s a cat with a caption ….

no, seriously, i do this pretty much all day, then i get up and break something, i know, right copy

Chilled Out

 

that's not an exercise regime, it's a junta copy

Sparta Puss isn’t lazy. She’s just relaxed. So she says. My digital drawing, Husb’s caption.

Anti Cat Propaganda

remote

I’m with the late, great Little Ming on this one. Too many films portray cats as the villains. And we know they’d never behave like that. Oh no. 😉

Another of Husb’s captions over one of my cat drawings.

Universally ambiguous (more revolting)

Patricia McKenna-Jones and I are Revolting Women

 

via Universally ambiguous (more revolting)

Do Not Disturb

you could move and lose a few pints of blood and your dignity, or we could stay here copy

So here’s another one of Husb’s captions on one of my cat drawings. Sparta Puss was sleeping on my lap of an evening, like she often does. She doesn’t like to be disturbed!