Stamping!

I’m going to be running some creative training sessions soon and one of them is going to be about stamping. That’s not moving your feet up and down with force, but the practice of creating new artworks from rubber – or lino or wood – stamps. I’ve been doing some work in this technique, inspired by artists Atif Khan, Ryan McGinnis and Federico Pietrella. Here are some different ways I’ve been using a stamp I had made from a screenprint I did of my hero, German artist Käthe Kollwitz. On the left, a ‘mashup’ with a newspaper fragment; in the middle a 3D construction from Shiohara paper and aluminium armature wire; on the right a stitched piece with chine collé.

 

Here are some examples of work from other artists using stamps too. From left to right, Federico Pietrella, Ryan McGinnis, Atif Khan.

 

 

 

 

For a limited period I am putting a new drawing from my recent sketch books on my Artfinder gallery every day.  If you’d like to check them out, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

 

 

Walk Wednesday: A Walk to the Great Pen Y Fan — Brecon Beacons Tourism Blog

PEN Y FAN – The easiest way to the top of Pen y Fan and Corn Du. This week’s Walk Wednesday is all about the highest peak in the National Park and southern Britain. Here’s another great guide, from the man everyone would want to be with in a survival situation! Who struggles to get lost […]

via Walk Wednesday: A Walk to the Great Pen Y Fan — Brecon Beacons Tourism Blog

Just A Quick One

 

I didn’t do any art today, bogged down with admin and cooking, so I had a quick scribble when a relative popped round this evening. My friends and family are fair game. If they sit still for a few minutes, it’s inevitable that they’ll end up in my sketchbook. It’s a very small sketchbook with a lovely fabric cover and a red ribbon, very good white paper too.

 

 

For a limited period I am putting a new drawing from my recent sketch books on my Artfinder gallery every day. This is a view from Swansea Beach.  If you’d like to check them out, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

 

 

A Digital Head

1498768199672

I’m making some headway (pardon the pun) with my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 tablet. I haven’t drawn with it for a couple of years but I restarted a couple of weeks ago in life drawing group at Swansea Print Workshop. I’m using a free app called Markers and I like the simplicity of it. However, when I open a new page I need to lay down a ground first and build up the drawing on top, otherwise it goes a bit funny and sort of reverses itself and has to be corrected in Adobe Photoshop. This portrait took about 20 minutes.

Invitation
An invitation to Yr Helfa

If you’re in Swansea on Friday, my exhibition is opening at Cinema & Co, with lashings of home-made cake and a short illustrated talk. You’re very welcome to join me.

 

For a limited period I am putting a new drawing from my recent sketch books on my Artfinder gallery every day.  If you’d like to check them out, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

 

 

 

Life Drawing And Cake

This is a fairly quick drawing I did at life drawing session in Swansea Print Workshop on Thursday evening. I’m getting back into drawing with my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 using the free Markers app. There is some quite extreme foreshortening with that right foot.

 

I took along an apricot upside-down cake for the tea break. I like the way the apricots caramelised around the edges. I drizzled a little home-made elderflower cordial onto them before cooking the cake and it browned them nicely.

 

 

For a limited period I am putting a new drawing of an ancient monument on my Artfinder gallery every day.  If you’d like to check them out, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

 

 

 

Look What I’ve Got!

Press

Look what I’ve got! Ner nerner ner ner! 😛

Husb and I did a road trip up to Ynyshir in The Rhondda Valley today and bought this gorgeous Victorian book press off the charming Mike. I’ll use it for lino and wood block prints. I don’t know the make or date of manufacture so if anyone out there knows, I’d be grateful for any information. There’s a very worn logo on it, with a Lion and the letter ‘D’ underneath. Nearly corpsed Husb when he carried it in from the car.

We also crammed in a visit to the re-opened Cynon Valley Museum and Gallery in Aberdare which is showing an exhibition by Gayle Rogers, ‘The Parochial Artist’, for another week. Gayle is also a founder of The Workers Gallery in Ynyshir so we popped in there as well. A grand day out.

Gayle

 

 

For a limited period I am putting a new drawing of an ancient monument on my Artfinder gallery every day.  If you’d like to check them out, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

 

 

 

The Art. The Megaliths. The Film. The Rain!

 

Coming soon to Cinema & Co, an exhibition by Rose Davies, a film by Melvyn Williams, an illustrated talk by Dewi Bowen……..

 

 

 

For a limited period I am putting a new drawing of an ancient monument on my Artfinder gallery every day.  If you’d like to check them out, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

 

 

 

Little Hairy Poser

 

Just time for a quick scribble in my sketchbook this evening. This is Ming the Merciless, our little hairy cat. She’s sixteen now and sleeps even more than cats normally do, which makes sketching much easier. Mind you, I’ve never met a cat yet that didn’t like to be drawn, they’re such a bunch of posers.

 

 

For a limited period I am putting a new drawing of an ancient monument on my Artfinder gallery every day.  If you’d like to check them out, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

 

 

 

Three’s A Crowd

I often go along to demonstrations, vigils, protests partly because they often reflect my own views but also because it’s a good opportunity to draw people in groups, crowds, in relation to each other and to their surroundings, in action and in repose. Lots of different things to draw, good practice.

Of course, you can’t guarantee that people will stay still, or remain where they are so you have to be quick and train yourself to capture the essence of the scene in front of you, rather than the detail. That’s how the Impressionists worked. I worked with white, black and sanguine conté crayon into my A4 brown paper sketchbook from Seawhites of Brighton. This was the recent demonstration by local artists protesting against the imminent closure of Oriel Ceri Richards Gallery at Swansea University’s Singleton campus.

 

 

For a limited period I am putting a new drawing of an ancient monument on my Artfinder gallery every day.  If you’d like to check them out, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

 

 

 

From Pakistan To Pentre Ifan: Art, Cake And Neolithic Wales

My solo show, “Yr Helfa / The Hunt”, is now on at Swansea’s quirky artspace, Cinema & Co throughout July and we’re finishing with a fabulous event on Monday July 31st from 5.30 pm featuring a film from Melvyn Williams, an illustrated talk from Dewi Bowen and I’ll be launching a new edition of a lino print made especially for the event.

I am exhibiting a series of drawings made of ancestral Bronze Age and Neolithic monuments in the field – mostly muddy fields – drawn on my journey across South Wales over the past 18 months with prehistorian Dewi Bowen and filmmaker Melvyn Williams. This body of work has its roots in a life-changing journey I made to Pakistan some years ago, where I became fascinated by rock carvings over 10,000 years old.

 

Back in February 2016 I started trudging through mud and slurry, fording turbulent streams and climbing over brackish hilltops through hail, rain and snow with Dewi and Melvyn to hunt down Neolithic and Bronze Age burial chambers, ceremonial circles and standing stones that lie scattered across the landscape of Wales. Coming face to face with these ancestral symbols both of a long lost culture and of continuity in a rapidly changing world has had a profound impact on me.

Please check Cinema & Co’s Facebook page for opening times during the exhibition.

 

 

For a limited period I am putting a new drawing of an ancient monument on my Artfinder gallery every day.  If you’d like to check them out, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.