Getting Darker

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I’m carrying on drawing experimentally on top of a little watercolour sketch I did en plein air a couple of days ago. I uploaded it onto my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 tablet into a free Markers drawing app and I’m working over it with cross-hatching and scribbling. The version I did yesterday is better than my original, which was very wishy washy and mundane, but today I took it a few stages darker and I’m liking it more. I’m going to keep working over it to see how dark I can go before I lose the subject all together.

I think it’s an important part of the creative process to take time out to experiment, to play with no pressure to meet deadlines or conform to the brief of a commission. I’m not keen on using either watercolours or digital drawing apps, but they’re good as a means to an end, trying out new ideas that might lead somewhere.

 

 

I am putting my series of drawings of ancient Welsh monuments on Artfinder.  If you’d like to see them, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

St Elvis

Wishy Washy

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I’ve been having a go at watercolours recently, since I won a really nice St. Cuthbert’s Mill Saunders Waterford glued watercolour block in a Facebook competition. I’m not really into painting but this is lovely paper and there’s a lot of it and, frankly, waste not, want not, as my Nana used to say. Husb and I stayed over in Lampeter yesterday, a mini staycation, and there was a lovely view from our room, but I’m always a bit stumped where to start with landscape so I decided to just block in areas of colour without being too worried about details. I used Winsor & Newton half pans. It was a very overcast and misty morning today and the colours were very soft and muted and to be honest, way too wishy-washy for my liking.

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When I got home, I photographed it onto my Samsung Galaxy Note tablet and loaded it into my free Markers app and started scribbling over it. I feel a lot happier with the overlaid cross hatching and scribbled textures, but I think I need to go further; I think I need to work over it again and make it really dark and Gothic with just some tiny flecks of colour showing through. Something to do tomorrow.

 

 

I am putting my series of drawings of ancient Welsh monuments on Artfinder.  If you’d like to see them, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

St Elvis

Putting It Together

Making an artwork can sometimes be quick and spontaneous but is often a set of processes that finally come together. That’s the way I developed the collage that I made yesterday at the Mill Lane Arts Week in Cardiff. I rummaged around in my plans chest for old discarded prints that hadn’t worked out to my satisfaction, linocuts and screenprints, the paper is too good to waste so they get squirreled away to be reused.

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I worked on top of a large discarded linocut and collaged a fragment of a two-colour screenprint that hadn’t worked out.

 

Over the previous week, I had been scribbling over some unused screenprints and also some vintage papers with Daler Rowney soft pastels, working randomly building up layers of colour and texture. I used these extensively to build up detail on my collage.

 

So my final piece started some years ago with disappointment in the print studio – happy accidents.

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A lot of my artwork is available on my Artfinder gallery.  If you’d like to have a look, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

Urban Shredder

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Husb and I spent the day in Cardiff at the Mill Lane Arts Week en plein air public art event. Most of the artists there today were painting but I don’t really ‘get’ paint so I did a collage. I’ve been preparing collage papers all week ( please see the last few blog posts) and I got stuck into shredding and sticking the urban cityscape in front of me.

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I worked onto a discarded print, a large linocut that hadn’t worked out but turned on its side, it was a good starting point. Then I added some large-ish areas of colour and texture from some unwanted screen prints, then began shredding in earnest to build up detail. I had wondered about working in some linear details with conté crayon or oil bars, but in the end I liked the rough abstract nature of it.

Loads of artists have been working en plein air throughout the week and our work is on display on Level 2, 10, Mill Lane, Cardiff for the next few days, if you’re anywhere near.

 

 

A lot of my artwork is available on my Artfinder gallery.  If you’d like to have a look, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

Ready To Go

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Here’s the last of the scribbly experiments I’ve been doing lately, using Daler Rowney pastels onto vintage papers. I’ve been thinking about how I can use these pieces in cityscape collages tomorrow in Cardiff Arts Week. I’ll be drawing / collaging en plein air around Mill Lane and The Hayes, so please come and have a chat if you’re passing.

 

A lot of my artwork is available on my Artfinder gallery.  If you’d like to have a look, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

Sounds Like A Plan…

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Still experimenting with pastels on paper today, this time using a beautiful mid-weight vintage paper from a British mill that no longer exists. I wanted to be a bit more specific with the colours so I started working with various blue Daler Rowney soft pastels, using both hands to make randomised marks on the paper and then getting grubby with my fingers, rubbing away at some of the areas to soften the lines and intensify the hues.

Then I divided the paper with a fold and worked into one half with a black pastel and into the other with pale blue and white. I’m starting to get some ideas for using these papers. I will be working en plein air on Friday this week at the Cardiff Arts Week festival in Mill Lane. I think that most of the artists involved will be painting but I don’t paint. Messy stuff. So I thought I’d use these prepared papers to do some collaged cityscapes, working in the details with something intense like carbon. Sounds like a plan to me.

 

 

 

A lot of my artwork is available on my Artfinder gallery.  If you’d like to have a look, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

Like A Cartoon Fight

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Another scribbling experiment today. layering Daler Rowney soft pastels over an old screen print, I started with a rusty ochre pastel to start with, rubbing in places to alter the texture and the intensity of the colour. Then I worked my way through green to a very dark brown, then white at the very end.

The final piece of paper looks,to me, like one of those cartoon fights in a comic book, with clouds of stylised dust flying. Perhaps I should put in some little cartoon fists 😀

 

 

A lot of my artwork is available on my Artfinder gallery.  If you’d like to have a look, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

Paper Experiments

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I’ve been carrying on doing randomised scribbles over discarded screenprints today. I’m planning on using them on Friday when I’m spending the whole day in Cardiff drawing / painting en plein air.

I started with a screenprint that I did on Zerkall paper some time ago that I didn’t like and scribbled with a reddish ochre Daler Rowney soft pastel. I did a bit of rubbing with my finger over parts of it, to get some different textures. Then I overlaid with black scribbles and finally white.

I took some digital closeups because I want to try out some digital development ideas at some time.

 

 

A lot of my artwork is available on my Artfinder gallery.  If you’d like to have a look, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

Scribbles On Scribbles

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Building on top of what I did yesterday, I scribbled randomly with a white Daler Rowney soft pastel, instinctively concentrating the marks towards the centre. Then I added small amounts of colour – yellow, rose and blue. I don’t know how I’ll use this yet, I might rip it up for collage or I might draw or paint on top.

I like the close up digital images I’ve taken. Of course, I could work on this digitally. It’s something I don’t often do but there’s no reason not to. I’m out of my comfort zone here but taking a lead from the Surrealists who used to do creative exercises like this to help them to work from their imagination instead of relying on working from life. It’s an interesting process.

 

 

A lot of my artwork is available on my Artfinder gallery.  If you’d like to have a look, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

Scribbles, Screens And Sketches

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A while back, some years in fact, I made some photoscreens using little annotated drawings from one of my sketchbooks and I printed them up onto really nice Zerkall paper. Unfortunately, I didn’t like them. They didn’t seem, to me, to make the transition from sketch to screenprint. So I stuffed them in a draw and left them for a long time, thinking that I might reuse the paper in future.

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Earlier this week I did some really abstract scribbles, layering random marks of pastels onto paper and today I decided that’s what I would try to do with some of these discarded screenprints.

So I started scribbling away with a black Daler Rowney soft pastel, rubbing with my fingers in areas to get a more intense black.

Step 5

Tomorrow, I’ll work on some more layers to add more depth and colour.

 

A lot of my artwork is available on my Artfinder gallery.  If you’d like to have a look, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.