I thought I had blogged all the monotypes I made from my Mari Lwyd drawings but I overlooked this one. It was the last that I did that day and maybe because I was tired and hungry, it’s probably the most sinister of the series. Mari Lwyd is actually quite a fun tradition, with lots of banter, drinking and skittishness although people unfamiliar with it are often spooked by the horse’s skull!
I am putting my series of drawings of ancient Welsh monuments on Artfinder. If you want to buy one, you can see them by clicking on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.
Husb and I recently went to a talk at Swansea’s excellent Galerie Simpson by Owen Hatherley, journalist, author, social commentator and an inspiration behind the recent Austerity Nostalgia exhibition. It was fascinating and I wanted to make notes to remind me. I had my red-embroidered-covered-lined-notebook with me and a nice Faber Castell drawing pen.
I think visually and hate making notes entirely in writing, I prefer to doodle them, even if it’s just playing with the fonts. I find them far more memorable than pages of cramped handwriting and I’m more motivated to re-read them.
I am putting my series of drawings of ancient Welsh monuments on Artfinder. If you want to buy one, you can see them by clicking on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.
I’ll scribble anytime, anywhere, me. I only had a lined notebook with me but what the heck! It’s good practice to draw quickly, you can’t expect random people to stay still and pose. It forces you to identify the basic features of your subject and reject anything above and beyond that.
I am putting my series of drawings of ancient Welsh monuments on Artfinder. If you want to buy one, you can see them by clicking on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.
A study from Swansea Print Workshop’s life drawing group last week, working with an older male model. The foreshortening was very difficult and I did a lot of reworking. I used white, sanguine and black conté crayon onto brown parcel wrapping paper. About 35 minutes.
I am putting my series of drawings of ancient Welsh monuments on Artfinder. If you want to buy one, you can see them by clicking on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.
The first of my life drawings last week at Swansea Print Workshop. I like working with this older male model, his face and body are interesting and he’s a very experienced model. This was a relatively quick sketch using white, sanguine and black conté crayons onto brown parcel wrapping paper.
I am putting my series of drawings of ancient Welsh monuments on Artfinder. If you want to buy one, you can see them by clicking on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.
Once upon a time, the printmakers of Wingtip Press in Boise, Idaho, USA were cleaning out their flat files and found dozens of little scraps of expensive printmaking papers jamming up the drawers. Realising they probably weren’t alone with the dilemma of what to do with all those too-precious-to-throw-out leftover paper scraps, they issued an invitation to fellow printmakers around the globe to participate in a print exchange to use all those lovely bits of paper.
Artists submit an edition of 15 miniature prints and received a dozen prints in return. One of the edition is included in a silent auction to raise funds for the Hunger Relief Task Force in the State another edition joins an international touring exhibition. Now in its seventh year, the exchange includes printmakers from Australia to Arizona, Canada to Colorado, Nevada to Norway to New Zealand, Korea to Kansas, Wales to Washington, and places in between! The box of over a hundred little prints recently crossed the Atlantic from Reno to The Rhondda Valley and has just finished its exhibition at Swansea Print Workshop.
I’ve just completed my little edition of 15 for Leftovers VII. It’s inspired by my admiration for German Expressionist artist Käthe Kollwitz and I’ve done some little prints from a rubber stamp I had made from a screenprint I had done of her. The print is on a Japanese Shiohara paper which sews nicely so I have stitched them to J Green & Sons vintage paper (supplied by the Vintage Paper Co) with a strip of ripped hand-made paper, embedded with petals, in between. Finally I wrote in Welsh pencil on each “Annwyl Käthe, ‘dw i’n caru di….” (Dear Käthe, I love you….)
For more information about entering your prints for Leftovers VII, please contact Wingtip Press. The deadline has been extended to March 15th and the opportunity for two artists to do a residency at Wingtip has been added.
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I am putting my series of drawings of ancient Welsh monuments on Artfinder. If you want to buy one, you can see them by clicking on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.
Husb and I went to an artist talk at The Mission Gallery in Swansea earlier today. I like to scribble away in my sketchbook when I go to events like this. The artist, ceramicist Anne Gibbs was in conversation with Cath Roche, talking about her new exhibition, “Still“. I find that if I draw, rather than take written notes, I remember far more, I connect far more. I drew into a sketchbook that I made from recycled pieces of lovely papers, all different. This is a piece of Fabriano that I had previously stained with my home-made walnut ink. I used a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen, size S.
I am putting my series of drawings of ancient Welsh monuments on Artfinder. If you want to buy one, you can see them by clicking on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.
Here’s the last of the monotypes I made recently at Swansea Print Workshop based on my drawings of the Mari Lwyd. I used a vintage paper made by J Green and Sons supplied by the rather wonderful company The Vintage Paper Co in The Orkneys. The ink is Caligo Easy Wash Relief and the chine collé is hand made recycled sari paper stuck on with YES Paste. I used cotton buds (Q Tips), wooden barbecue skewers, scrim (tarlatan) and cotton rags for the mark making.
I am putting my series of drawings of ancient Welsh monuments on Artfinder. If you want to buy one, you can see them by clicking on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.
This is the second stone we visited yesterday in muddy West Wales, near Llangain. Quite a few of the Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments around here don’t have names and this is one of them. It’s a large, fine stone with an unusual feature that makes it look like a face from some angles. It’s surrounded by pylons and power cables. We could here the electricity crackling…..
I am putting my series of drawings of ancient Welsh monuments on Artfinder. If you want to buy one, you can see them by clicking on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.
Mud. Mud and standing stones. After a break of about three months I’m off out traipsing across the muddier parts of South Wales with filmmaker Melvyn Williams and pre-historian Dewi Bowen. There are still a lot of ancient monuments to be explored, recorded and drawn before Dewi is able to complete his new book. This small group is an unusual configuration called Llwyn Ddu, which translates from Welsh as Black Grove. It’s a strange place with a dark atmosphere so I drew onto a piece of paper I’d prepared with 2 layers of gesso and compressed charcoal. I had then rubbed different tones away with wire wool at random. I used black, white and sanguine conté crayons to draw with.
Mud, mud and more mud. A field in January on our way to the Llwyn Ddu standing stones.
I am putting my series of drawings of ancient Welsh monuments on Artfinder. If you want to buy one, you can see them by clicking on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.
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