Sparta Puss here again, monkeys-who-can-read. You’re quite clever really, for simians. I’m clever too. Here I am helping the hairless she-ape to cut something called lino. She makes stuff called art from it. She’s an idiot.
I’m off to exploit the kitty-sitter now. Toodles!
Hello again Hairless Apes. The monkeys are away and the kitties will play! I Am Sparta Puss! I thought I’d take over the pooter box while the apes aren’t around and show you some drawings of me and my roomie, Ming The Merciless. Here she is, dozing on top of the bed on top of a blanket on top of a cushion on top of a rucksack in front of the radiator. The bald she-ape called her The Princess And The Pea. I don’t know what that is. She’s an idiot!
I gotta go now and convince the kitty sitter that I need more cat treats. Ciao Miao!
Greetings Hoomins. Sparta Puss here. The manky monkeys have gone away for a few days – for some sun, they said. Wimps. Why don’t they just grow a fur coat like me?! So I got my paws on the pooter box and I’m going to publish a few drawings – of me of course. And maybe Ming the Merciless.
Me when I was a kitten. I’m adorable. They called me the fourth kitten of the Apocalypse. I don’t know why.
Don’t worry about me and Ming. They’ve arranged a kitty-sitter, a very nice hairless ape who can be manipulated into giving me bigger portions 😀
I went to Rufus Mufasa’s album launch last night at Cinema & Co in Swansea and it was a fantastic explosion of word performance, so different to traditional poetry performances, so energetic and angry and joyous and funny and full of life. And so varied. She had invited lots of other performers to join her. Of course I had to have a scribble. In the dark. As you do. I used graphite stick into my A5 lined notebook by Peter Pauper Press. Here it is with Sparta Puss, who seems a bit miffed by it.
If you want to check out Rufus’ album, Fur Coats From The Lion’s Den, which is fantastic, please click here.
Husb and I went along to Cinema & Co this evening for poetry, rap and word performance. I have dismal memories from decades ago of ‘Poets and Pints’ nights in local pubs, with few exceptions, full of third-rate wannabe John Cooper Clark’s declaiming drunkenly and I’ve mostly avoided poetry ever since. But this new generation of performers are amazing, so innovative, clever and entertaining. Of course, I had to have a scribble. This is Carl Beer from Swansea. He’s brilliant. It was quite dark in there.
Husb and I went to a friend’s seventieth birthday party this evening and it was fab. There was a rock band playing classics from the 60s and 70s. Great fun. Lots of dancing. There were people from their twenties to their nineties partying and it was lovely. Of course, I had to have a scribble. It was dark and I couldn’t see what I was doing so it was a surprise when I got my sketchbook home and opened it.
I did an afternoon of experiments at The Workers Gallery last week, trying out different combinations of inks and papers on a Gelli Arts gelatine printing plate. I want to print papers for collage. I did some basic experiments a few weeks ago and I wanted to do something a bit more advanced to see what the technique is capable of.
I used two different types of pigment – Caligo Safewash ink (oil-based) and Liquitex paint (acrylic) and two papers to print on – Daler Rowney cartridge paper and Hosho Japanese tissue. I also used ripped tissue paper and fruit net bags as stencils to add variation to colour and texture. I took two prints from each inking – a full colour one and a paler ‘ghost secondary image.
The Caligo inks had greater translucency and depth but in future I’ll try the Liquitex with a medium to thin it out a bit and see if I can get a more translucent paint. I prefer the Hosho paper, it gives much more luminosity than the Daler Rowney cartridge. The stencils – tissue and fruit net – worked really well and it was exciting when I took the paper off the plate to see what randomness endued.
I’m a gallery artist at the excellent Workers Gallery in Ynyshir where up to 20 invited artists are selected annually to have a square metre of permanent exhibition space and to work with the gallery to develop the exhibition programme and run regular residency and demo days. The Workers’ focuses on art made in Wales but also has a special programme of international artists throughout the year. It’s a lovely gallery, worth visiting.
Supporters of the gallery often become ‘Workers Mates’ for an annual contribution of £20 and in return they receive special exhibition opportunities, offers and VIP invitations. It’s an interesting model of working as it embeds the gallery in the local community through the Workers’ Mates scheme and also gives artists an opportunity to curate their own exhibition area.
I just visited last week and changed my ‘square metre’ to show these fairly new monotypes that haven’t been exhibited before. They’re based on impressionistic drawings I did during my last visit to Pakistan while I was travelling through The Punjab, and I used the 3-colour reduction technique with Caligo Safewash relief inks onto BFK Rives paper. See my Techie section for more about the technique.
I’ve been experimenting with Gelli Art gelatine plates for printmaking again. This time I used Caligo Safewash oil-based printing inks mixed with extender to make them translucent and overlaid the monotype three times, once in Process Yellow, then Process magenta and finally Process Cyan. I’ll explain the process in tomorrow’s blog. This is one of the pieces that I liked best, it is delicate and the overlays have produced so many subtle colours. I’m trying out this process to see if it will produce interesting papers for collage.
Here’s a longer life drawing I did this week at Swansea Print Workshop using the free Markers app on my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 tablet.
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