After trawling through photos and sketches, I’m getting stuck in to working out different bits of the composition. This is partly to get familiar with the details and partly to work out if this is what I want to go with. This is based on a photo I took of the spectacular fire spinner Ddraig Williams who will be a central figure in the finished work. I don’t know yet if it will be a big woodcut or a painting, maybe I’ll do both.
I’ve been trawling through my sketchbooks and photo archives for images to inspire me to develop a large-scale woodcut or painting of the annual Mari Lwyd celebrations locally. These are showing some promise. The fire spinner is the amazing Ddraig Williams and he’ll be a central figure if the composition works out as I want.
I’ve been mulling over an idea for ages, years, for a large woodcut or maybe a painting. I’ve been doing smaller pieces of work that have been independent of each other, but also try out elements of a potential larger artwork. Today I finally got off my bot and grabbed an A3 sketchbook (brown paper) and did some rough sketching with conte crayons. This is the first rough, no doubt there will be many more as I refine the composition and then the details, but this here is my starting point. I wonder how long it will take to get to the finishing point?
The inspiration comes from my participation in the Mari Lwyd events locally for the past few years, they’re usually at night and often feature fire. I’ve made a lot of sketches and a few prints. I’ve also been working on a few small paintings of people at night, outside in the firelight, that will feed into this as well.
Here are some little scribbles from my sketchbook that I posted back in June 2013, gosh, 12 years ago already, back in the pre-Covid days. I’m not sure what people are doing in the first few sketches, maybe it was an art event? I like drawing people who are in unusual positions, it’s good practice.
It’s #Caturday Saturday again and this week I have put the negative silhouette of Our Bill (the rescue cat) onto a rough proof print of my latest Mari Lwyd linocut. My eyes keep flickering back and forth between the cat and the eye of the Mari. Weird!
While I was developing the image for my latest Mari Lwyd linocut, I cut a small practice block. I was unsure about the way I had designed the eye, the little mushrooms on her hat, and the ribbons and bells. To make sure I had it right, and also to get to see how my drawings would translate into linocut, I drew, carved and printed the practice block. Mostly I was happy with it, but I needed to make the little bells more explicit. Also, the shallow gouge tool I had used to cut the background was too busy. I like the effect, but it’s not for this print.
I used hessian-backed grey lino and Cranfield Caligo Safewash Relief ink in black. I cut the lino with Flexcut tools and used a Flexcut Slipstrop to keep the tools sharp.
I was strolling along the street with my friend and fellow artist Chris Bird-Jones and she stopped me and pointed to this smear of seagull poop on the road (above). She thought it looked a bit like some of the figures I drew during my German residency last year (below). She could be right, y’know!
I’m really chuffed that I currently have screenprints in three group exhibitions across South Wales, in Aberdare, Neath and Swansea. “Women & The Valleys” in the Cynon Valley Museum and Gallery runs until March 30th – Aberdare is a great town for a day out. “Miners Imprint” at Queen Street Gallery is open until March 29th – Neath is on the train and has a nice market. Finally, “Come As You Really Are – The Swansea Open” at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery closes on April 27th – loads of things to do in the city. They’re all lovely galleries and interesting places to visit.
It’s 25years since Swansea Print Workshop began! To celebrate, we’re doing a load of special things throughout the year. I’ve recently been working on a new Mari Lwyd linocut and it’s my submission to an artists book we’re creating – 25 artists for 25 years. The theme is very loose, “Swansea”, and each print will be black and white, either relief- or screen- print and the whole set will be bound into concertina books, one for each artist and two for the print workshop. Tonight we met up to look at the first proofs, there’s a lot of lovely stuff there and I can’t wait to get my book.
Looking through old sketchbooks from June 2013, I found these from a visit to Aberdulais Falls, near Neath. It’s a National Trust property and very scenic, it was once painted by none other than the great Joseph Mallord William Turner in 1795, although the industrial heritage goes back to 1584. I was going through a phase of using oil bars at the time, but I eventually gave up on them because I found them too clumsy.
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