Anger Is An Energy…

I’ve done a small series of art on postcards for an exhibition coming up soon. I cut this little lino block a while back, inspired by lyrics from the song “Rise” by the band Public Image Ltd. “Anger Is An Energy” is also the title of John Lydon‘s autobiography. I was in a dark place at the time, it was the pandemic and, hey, I don’t need an excuse to be angry. Anger is a good energy for getting things done.

I cut the block from traditional brown lino, and printed it onto recycled confectionary foils using the chine collé method, with Cranfield Caligo Safewash relief ink in black.

Writhing Strokes…

I am lucky to do quite a bit of teaching in Community Arts and I worked with a lovely group at Swansea’s GS Artists last week, teaching how to paint an imaginary landscape inspired by Vincent van Gogh. In two hours! 😀

We used canvas boards, acrylic paints and palette knives. This is a small section of my demo piece, full of writhing strokes. I need to get back into it with smaller dots and dashes.

Drawing In The Dark

Drawing at a performance usually means drawing in very restricted light. Sometimes it’s too dark to see my sketchbook, but often it means that the performers, especially at the smaller gig venues, are partially or wholly in poor light.

#Caturday

It’s #Caturday Saturday again and here’s my silhouette of Little Bill looking at a copy I did of van Gogh’s painting of his bedroom at Arles. Throughout the Covid lockdown, I spent my Friday lunchtimes on Facebook, joining in with the artist Ed Sumner, who ran the Cheese and Wine Paint Club. He did 72 weekly lessons, all free. It brought together a real world-wide community.

Kitty Likes Bubbles.

More fun with postcards, this time using a small cat-themed lino block I use for teaching and some nice foil sweet wrappers.

Herstory: Kollwitz

I’ve been playing with my linocut blocks, some postcards and bits of shiny foil. I’ve combined my “Herstory” block with my small portrait block of the late German Expressionist artist Kathe Kollwitz. It’s getting harder to find coloured foils for the chine collé these days. Many sweet (candy) manufacturers have switched to plastic. Ychafi !!!

And Another Gig Goer…

Honestly, you’d think I spent my entire life at gigs! Well, it’s my main source of socialising and entertainment, so I suppose I do. Here’s someone else enjoying the music.

Musicians In Hats.

I don’t half make things hard on myself. As well as having a liking for drawing musicians, who have the nerve to be always moving around, I also have a thing about drawing hats. So…musicians with hats. Not easy. Not easy at all. Fun though. This was at a gig a few nights ago by the aptly named Wild-Eyed, Wicked and Oblivious at Sessions in Swansea.

Drawing at gigs is good. Plenty of opportunities to scribble people in the audience and on stage, in relation to the interiors or to their instruments. I find that drawing instruments is the hardest thing. Of course, musicians move around which makes sketching harder, but the instruments are usually constantly on the move too, changing the angle of observation and therefore changing the foreshortening. But I plough on, it’s good practice.

Fleeting Seconds…

It’s often easier to sketch the audience at gigs because musicians tend to move around a lot (except bass players), so I usually have just fleeting seconds to capture the essence of a guitarist, singer or drummer.