Husb and I are spending a few days in The Lake District with family and I have taken a break from drawing. It’s great scenery around here but I’m not much of a landscape person to be honest, I’d rather draw cityscapes. I did a lot of drawings last weekend at Gellionen Chapel’s Mari Lwyd event, here’s a close up of the Mari’s head. Quite gruesome I suppose if you’re not used to the tradition, but the Mari Lwyd is really funny in ‘person’.
Husb and I went to the old Gellionen Chapel last Sunday for a service that included Mari Ystrad, the Mari Lwyd from Ystradgynlais. The chapel, dating from the 1600s, is gorgeous and decorated with fresh boughs of holly. The service started with lighting a large candle and was not overtly religious, as the Unitarians welcome people of all faiths and none.
The Mari Lwyd is an old Welsh tradition that echoes back to ancient Celtic worship of the horse goddess Epona. There are links to a similar traditions in the UK, the Laare Vane (White Mare) on the Isle of Man and the Hobby Horse in parts of England.
Husb and I went to chapel last Sunday. Yes, that’s right, not something we would ever normally do. we went to see the Ystradgynlais Mari Lwyd at the Gellionen Unitarian chapel up on Gellionen Mountain. It was freezing cold but very sunny so I strolled out into the landscape and had a scribble into my A4 brown paper sketchbook with conté crayons in white, sanguine and black. There was a fantastic view that stretched down the mountains all the way to a glimpse of Swansea Bay with Mumbles in the background.
The chapel is very old, dating from 1692 and is close to the sight of a much older Celtic church, Llan Eithrim. It’s set in a hollow surrounded by trees in a very atmospheric setting.
Our scruffy little cat, Ming the Merciless, had her final visit to the vet today. She’s been poorly for a while now and Husb had to make the decision to let her go.
We rescued Ming when she was just a tiny, starving scrap about 10 months old. She was extremely ill from neglect and after 4 nights at the vet’s hospital, touch and go, we brought her home and she promptly went to sleep stretched along Husb’s legs. We had three older cats and she was very scared and reacting aggressively with them but she obviously felt secure when she was with Husb. We had her for 17 years and up until quite recently she still cwtched up to him on the settee. They were pretty much inseparable and she brought so much fun into our house, it was worth all the effort to save her. Her illness left her with weak lungs and one eye and we were lucky to have her for so long.
Last week I said about the charity collection box that was stolen from the nativity scene in front of the Unitarian Church on Swansea’s High Street. The church was raising money for a homelessness charity this year and has had a nativity in a large glass case every Christmas for decades, since I was a very small child. My Mam and Nana and aunties would take me, my little sister and cousins to see it and I remember being so excited, it brought it home to me that it was Christmas. Well, the church set up a crowdfunding appeal to replace the £200 or so that was lost and thanks to peoples’ kindness and generosity, has raised over six times that amount. Please click here if you’d like to donate.
I stopped by and scribbled, en plein air, one of the nativity figures in white, sanguine and black conté crayon into my A4 brown paper sketchbook. For many years, European art colleges taught partly through the copying of classical statues. I find it so difficult to copy another artist’s work and style, the urge to put my own stamp on it is too great, I’m afraid.
Husb and I went to a fab arty party last night, several artists shared a birthday and organised an evening of performance and goings on. It was lovely. Of course, I had to have a scribble, but I could only see people’s backs, but that’s ok. It’s all good practice.
And there’s some interesting things going on, wild hair, wacky tattoos and eyecatching boots. I scribbled into my tiny little Paper Blanks Ukiyo-e Kimono sketchbook with a biro (ballpoint) pen.
Here are a couple more heads I scribbled last night at the WAM (Words Art Music) monthly event at the excellent Workers Gallery in Ynyshir. I did my usual thing of being an art voyeur, scribbling people’s likenesses when they were absorbed in what was going on.
I am very fond of this tiny sketchbook, you can get an idea of its size from the pepper next to it. It’s by Paper Blanks, hardback with a fabric cover which is based on a Japanese Ukiyo-e kimono pattern and the whole thing is so beautifully made, with acid-free paper and a precisely folded paper pocket on the inside back cover. Ukiyo-e is a genre of woodblock prints dating back to the 1600s (the Edo period) and the word means “pictures of the floating world“.
It’s late and Husb and I are just back from a great evening at the lovely Workers Gallery in Ynyshir in the Rhondda Valley. We went to the monthly WAM (Words, Art, Music) event which is held on the first Thursdays. Of course I had a scribble, catching the faces of people in the audience who were absorbed in the performances. I used a biro (ballpoint) pen into my small (A6) flowery hardback Paper Blanks sketchbook.
I’m still stuck in that state of post holiday lethargy and to be honest didn’t fancy doing any drawing today but it’s important for my artistic practice that I do, so I took the easy way out and grabbed my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 tablet and did a quick digital sketch of Sparta Puss who is sparked out at my side. She’s even more lethargic than I am.
I use an app called Markers which is free to download and I drew it using a stylus – you get a different effect if you use your finger. I started by blocking out the background in black, then overlaid with white and tones of orange.
I spent a pleasant afternoon folding and creasing coloured papers, doing simple origami shapes. I work part time for a national charity that helps homeless people and we made a start today on an art project that’s going to grow over the next few weeks. Watch this space 😀
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