My Geographic Palette #1 – Charcoal

charcoal 2

 

This is my first tryout with my geographic palette, a drawing based on a sketch I did en plein air on a field trip with colleagues from Swansea University’s FIRE Lab a couple of months ago when we went off exploring culverts up in the Brecon Beacons.

 

The charcoal I bought a few years back when I visited John Ruskin’s house, Brantwood, at Coniston Water in the Lake District. At the time they made charcoal from willow grown on the estate, using traditional methods. It’s quite crumbly and benefits from being used with a heavyweight textured paper. I’m using a 300gsm Bockingford here and I’m pleased with the results, lots of tonal variation depending on the pressure I’ve used. It’s only a small drawing, I’m using an A5 size sketchbook, spiral bound from Pink Pig in Barnsley, and I’m abstracting away from the original which is starting to excite me.

 

 

 

 

My Geographic Palette

Geographic Palette small

I’m thinking about how to develop from the sketches I’ve done on a couple of field trips with colleagues in the FIRE Lab team and, as the research project is about ecosystems and environment, I thought I’d try as much as possible to use natural earths, plants and minerals in my artworks, so I’m putting together a geographic palette. I’ve made a pretty good start already, with graphite, lapis lazuli, ochre, charcoal, Bideford Black, some red sandstone and my own home-made walnut ink.

Over the next few days I’ll be researching and writing about them so watch this space …. 🙂

 

 

 

Baggy Waders

Brynmill Stream 3

I did some quick sketches en plein air at Brynmill Stream the other day, where some colleagues from the FIRE Lab were setting up an experiment in the water. I was fascinated by the baggy waders that they were wearing, I’d never seen any close to before.

 

I did a couple of very quick continuous line drawings and then a more detailed one, but as always it’s not easy to draw people in motion.

 

 

En Plein Air

Bath Carny 3

And the final scribbles from Saturday’s carnival in Bath. Drawing moving figures is a challenge but really good practice and I don’t normally get the chance to do it. That’s one of the advantages of drawing en plein air.

 

Bath Carny 4

 

 

More Bath Time

 

Bath Carny 2

Three kids in a Lazy Lounger and a man with nothing better to look at in the Bath Carnival at the weekend…..

 

 

Judith hits back one more time

A fascinating blog by Swansea-based artist Patti McKenna-Jones following her creative process for her latest woodcut

 

via Judith hits back one more time

Scribbles From the Bath Carny

Bath Carny 1

Husb and I went to Bath this weekend to visit friends and go to the Carnival. I like a good carnival. When I was a nipper, there used to be loads of carnivals in working class areas, with floats and what we called “Jazz Bands” who didn’t really do jazz but tunes on jingly things and kazoos. There would be baton twirlers too. I think that Elfin Safety might have done for them.

I did some contour drawings with a pencil into my A6 sketchbook – it was pretty fast moving at times and good practice. Originally, carnivals happened just before the Christian period of Lent and the word means “to remove meat”, which refers to the 40 days of abstinence that followed.

 

 

Snipe In The Dark Manner

Snipe 4

This is the last of the drawings I recently did at Swansea Museum as part of a day with Edinburgh artist and printmaker Kelly Stewart, organised by Swansea Print Workshop. I did loads of drawings of the Snipe and this is done in the manier noir technique on prepared paper (please click here if you want to find out more about manier noir).

Snipe 6

I did loads of drawings – here are a few. It was great spending a whole day locked away in a room in a museum drawing. Like I’d died and gone to heaven.

 

 

Another Blind Contour Drawing

Snipe 2

Here’s another blind contour drawing I did, of a snipe, at Swansea Museum last week. It’s a very useful exercise, it forces you to stop being precious about what you’re drawing, to loosen up and to concentrate on closely observing your subject, instead of watching the paper.

 

 

Snipe Silhouette

 

Snipe 3

So now I’m getting a bit obsessed with Snipe, a funny little bird with impossibly skinny legs and beak, for wading and probing at the water’s edge, beautifully designed for its environment. In these drawings I focused on the silhouette to try and establish the overall shape of the bird, using my own home-made walnut ink. Thinking ahead, I can see one, or both, of these being cut into a block of lino or vinyl for printing – maybe a reduction print?

I was down at Swansea Museum, working with a group of artists from Swansea Print Workshop and scientists from the FIRE Laboratory. It was so interesting getting that interaction and input, finding out about the birds habits and habitats fleshed out their personalities and helped with developing an artistic interpretation of the little beasties.

Snipe 5