I did a series of drawings en plein air throughout the year, travelling across South Wales to draw Neolithic and Bronze Age stone monuments. I’m now redrawing them into a sketchbook because I want to pare them down, get to the essence of them, see what the vital details are and see what I come up with. Purely experimental at this stage but already I’m getting ideas for etchings and lino cuts. hmmmmm
I have some work in both the exhibitions below, if you’re passing through The Rhondda Valley or Cardiff, please pop in…..
I did a large series of drawings of Neolithic stone monuments throughout the past year, drawing en plein air, and I recently started to draw from the drawings to try to push mysef into more abstraction. I’m using three colours of conté crayon, white, black and sanguine into my new A4 size brown paper sketchbook. I like drawing onto coloured paper, it breaks the tyranny of the pristine white space. This is Carreg Coch (The Red Stone) in Carmarthenshire which is embedded in a hedge and surrounded by barbed wire, which helps to protect it. Many ancient stones have been moved or destroyed.
I have some work in both the exhibitions below, if you’re passing through The Rhondda Valley or Cardiff, please pop in
Just back from Swansea Storytelling Club where there was a brief appearance from a Mari Llwyd, an ancient Welsh tradition based on a horse’s skull. It was made by local artist and musician, David Pitt. Of course, I scribbled it…….
I have some work in both the exhibitions below, if you’re passing through The Rhondda Valley or Cardiff, please pop in
Just back from a life drawing session at Swansea Print Workshop – I concentrated on portraiture this week. I drew with conté crayons in white, black and sanguine. I made a Victoria Sandwich for our tea break with home made jostaberry jam. Now I’m tired and off to bed. Good night zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I have some work in both the exhibitions below, if you’re passing through The Rhondda Valley or Cardiff, please pop in 🙂
I spent many days between February and August this year travelling across South Wales drawing ancestral stones, which were exhibited in The Workers Gallery in September. Today, I decided to break open my new brown paper sketchbook and conté crayons and started to redraw my previous work, not copying it but using it to develop ideas and new directions in drawing. I normally work directly from life en plein air, so this is quite different for me. I did quite a few and I really enjoyed it. I might just go and fill the sketchbook this way.
I have work featured in two exhibitions at the moment – in The Workers Gallery in The Rhondda Valley and at Llanover Hall in Cardiff, both lovely venues and worth a look-in if you’re in the area.
Here I am with over a hundred luscious leftover prints just arrived from The Workers Gallery in The Rhondda Valley
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 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 14 miniature prints and received a dozen prints in return. One print is included in a silent auction to raise funds for the Hunger Relief Task Force in the State and the final one of the edition joins an international touring exhibition.
Now in its sixth year, the exchange include 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 and is now about to be exhibited in Swansea Print Workshop through December and January.
My collection of twelve prints from Leftovers VI from artists across the world
The show opens with a traditional Welsh tea, with lashings of bara brith and other luscious home-made cakes, from 5 – 7 on Tuesday December 6th at Swansea Print Workshop and runs daily from 10.30 – 4.00 daily (except Mondays) with a break over the Xmas holidays, until January the 8th.
Ming The Merciless is elderly now, sixteen years old, one-eyed and has arthritis in her paws so she can’t scratch her claws anymore and they need to be clipped. Problem is, she’s a complete psycho! There’s no way we can do it so for the past couple of years she’s been going to the vets every few months to have them clipped by professionals. But they’re terrified of her so she’s been having a general anaesthetic each time. They’ve now decided that she’s too old and frail to have a general if it’s for a non-life threatening condition. So today we tried something new. We slipped her a Mickey Finn in some food and Husb took her to the vet an hour later when she was well woozy and could barely stand up. Even in that state she was incredibly violent and took out two vets. They managed to do her back paws and one front paw but had to give up! When she came home, she had the munchies and scoffed a ton of food, then crashed out. I don’t know what was in the tablet they gave her.
I have work featured in two exhibitions at the moment – in The Workers Gallery in The Rhondda Valley and at Llanover Hall in Cardiff, both lovely venues and worth a look-in if you’re in the area.
Sometimes, when I’m scribbling away, I have a little furry helper. Quite often in fact. Her name is Sparta Puss. I am her trained monkey.
I have work featured in two exhibitions at the moment – in The Workers Gallery in The Rhondda Valley and at Llanover Hall in Cardiff, both lovely venues and worth a look-in if you’re in the area.
Up at The Workers Gallery in Ynyshir tonight at the opening of their Winter Group show. It’s fab. I have two pieces in the exhibition and quite a few more scattered around the gallery. The group show is a great mix of work, interpretations and inspirations based on a poem by Mike Church.
It isn’t glamorous, being an artist. It’s a constant slog. Underpinning my art practice is a daily routine of just that, practice. And at the heart of that practice is simple drawing, usually in sketchbooks. I draw anybody, anywhere, at every opportunity. Random faces in random places.
I have a new piece of art in this exhibition in Cardiff. Please drop by if you’re in the area 🙂
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