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Seaweed And Gin

I have been experimenting with making a water-based printing ink, using a recipe from printmaker Shannon Yost published by Natural Earth Paint. There’s a comprehensive list of ingredients including Nori (seaweed) paste, powdered minerals and gin. The gin is for preserving the ink. Honest. 😀

2 Ochre — Measure 1 tablespoon of natural powdered pigment.

3 Gin and water — Add half a teaspoon of water and half a teaspoon of gin and mix it up with a chopstick.

5 Add Nori — Turn it onto a palette and add 1 teaspoon of Nori paste.

4 MIX — Mix it well with a palette knife.

6 Roller — Roll a small amount on a smooth surface (I used acrylic sheet) with a roller (brayer).

Stage One completed. Tomorrow I’ll look at trying out different types of blocks and different papers…….

I have put my series of drawings en plein air of ancient Welsh monuments on Artfinder. If you want to see more, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page. This one is the legendary grave of Saint Elfys (Elvis) in Pembrokeshire, not for from the Presceli Mountains. Elfys? Presceli? Elvis Presley? Coincidence? hhhmmmm

Mountain Memorial

Here’s another drawing I did en plein air up the Rhondda Valley last week. We stopped at a viewing place called Carn Eiddil and walked to the top of a pile of large rocks to look down the valley dropping away sharply beneath and there on the slope were loads of tiny memorials. They’re mostly crosses, some simply made of wood, others beautifully constructed from metal and most commemorate people, just a few are dedicated to pets.

Walnuts And Gesso

CB5

This is the third drawing I did at Maen Ceti / Arthur’s Stone at Cefn Bryn on the Gower Peninsula this week. I used a piece of Fabriano paper that I had prepared with two coats of textured acrylic gesso. When it was dry, I sponged some of my home-made walnut ink over it. The ink pooled at random, giving a spotty sort of texture. This seemed to reflect the texture on the massive capstone itself, covered with colonies of lichens. I drew with conté crayons in black, sanguine and white.

ANOTHER RUSSIA – POST-SOVIET PRINTMAKING

oooohhh! New show at the V&A

Source: ANOTHER RUSSIA – POST-SOVIET PRINTMAKING

Stratification

CB4

I was at Cefn Bryn on the Gower Peninsula yesterday, drawing at Arthur’s Stone – Maen Ceti in Welsh. It’s a Neolithic burial chamber surrounded by cairns, truly an ancient landscape of the dead. It’s a very popular site and I’ve drawn it many times, so it’s hard to come up with a new approach, a different angle, which is what I tried to do yesterday.

I drew with Daler Rowney artists’ soft pastels onto paper I’d prepared in advance with two layers of gesso and some of my home-made walnut ink, so there was already a great deal of abstract imagery on the surface. I kept the outline of the monument deliberately sparse, sketched lightly in white and then chose colours that matched those in the landscape to work with. The paper was already streaked horizontally with the brown walnut ink so I emphasised the horizontal stratification of the land and seascape by using the pastels in parallel with the walnut lines.

I did three drawings in all at the monument yesterday, the final one tomorrow!

Arthur’s Stone

Went hunting wild megaliths today, this time to Arthur’s Stone, Maen Ceti, a Bronze Age burial chamber on the Gower Peninsula. And now I’m tired ……….. Goodnight 😀

Up The Rhondda

Travelling on the A4233 up the Rhondda Valley between Maerdy and Aberdare, there are a lot of viewing stops that are great for a quick scribble. It was quick too, as we were high up and it was cold and windy as well as bright and sunny. I keep to a restricted pallette of black, white and sanguine conté crayon into my A4 brown paper sketchbook.

Pressure And Strokes

Another quick sketch from Swansea Bay yesterday with conté crayons into my A4 brown paper sketchbook. I concentrated on capturing a sense of the atmosphere, rather than fine detail. I limit myself to three colours, white, sanguine and black, so different tones have to be achieved by varying the pressure on the conté sticks and overlaying one colour with strokes of another. The brown coloured paper gives me a ready-made mid-tone to work over, which makes life a bit easier. A lot easier really, as I don’t have to face the tyranny of a pristine white sheet.

A Walk On The Beach

Went for a walk on the beach, Swansea Bay, earlier today. Husb took off to do a run and I sat and scribbled into my A4 brown paper sketchbook from Seawhite’s of Brighton. I used black, sanguine and white conté crayons.

There isn’t a huge amount to draw on the beach and I’ve found that intimidating in the past, but many artists have made pictures from very little subject matter by concentrating on the atmosphere or their feelings for what’s in front of them, so that’s what I tried to do this evening.

Baseball Bat And Chips

Carn Eiddil

Husb and I took a road trip up some of the South Wales valleys today, calling in at the new Studio 18 gallery in Pontycymer owned by artist Kevin Sinnott, a fabulous artspace filled with gorgeous art; paintings, etchings, drawings, well worth a visit. Then over the mountain to The Workers Gallery in Ynyshir to catch the end of the current show from the gallery artists and guest sculptor Tobbe Malm from Norway. Always a great show on there. On the way home we called into a chippie in Ferndale for the best pie and chips and the chippie owner keeps a baseball bat behind the counter. My sort of place, totally! Then we drove up over the mountains , stopping at Carn Eiddil for a quick scribble up the valley before coming home.

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