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.
Spent the day at Swansea Print Workshop making more monotypes based on the drawings I did while I followed around two local Mari Lwyd in December and January. I’m experimenting to find the right combination of ink, paper and glue (for the chine collé). I originally used Bockingford, Somerset then switched to a vintage paper by J Green & Sons (supplied by the Vintage Paper Co in Orkney). Today I just used the J Green paper which doesn’t need soaking, just a little spritz of clean water
Last time I tried out Intaglio Printmaker’s Litho / Relief oil-based ink with varying amounts of Extender but found it too tacky, it was quite hard to work the drawing onto the plate and it didn’t want to release the chine collé when it went through the press, so today I gave Caligo Easy Wash Relief ink a go. It worked much better although it was too loose to hold fine detail through the printing press.
Previously, I tried Pritt for the chine collé but today I used ‘YES’ paste which was much easier to apply and stuck the light tissues to the main print perfectly. Very impressed with it. I’ve changed everything from my starting point, it can take some time and experimentation to get the right combo.
After taking the first print with chine collé, I put another sheet of the dampened J Green paper onto the plate and took a ‘ghost’ print which I will work into with artist-quality oil pastels or maybe collage.
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.
After preparing the plate with my image of a Mari Lwyd, I printed it on one of the smaller etching presses at Swansea Print Workshop. For this one I used a vintage paper, by J Green & Sons that was manufactured between 1969 and 1974, sourced from the Vintage Paper Co. I didn’t have to soak it, just a spritz with clean water from a squirty bottle. That saved some time and hassle. It gave a good dense black and plenty of definition.
I put another piece of spritzed paper through to take a ghost print which didn’t, of course, have any chine collé. I’m thinking of working into this with top quality oil pastels.
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.
Working from my recent drawings of the Mari Lwyd, I developed some of them into monotypes. I used a piece of perspex (acrylic sheet) and litho / relief ink mixed with Extender (by Intaglio Printmaker). This was rollered very thinly onto the perspex and I drew into it with cotton buds, wooden skewers, scrim and rags.
I wanted to include some colour to represent the ribbons and flowers that decorate the Mari skull so I ripped pieces of handmade papers made from recycled saris and placed them face down onto the prepared plate. Before putting them down I covered the upper side with glue – I used Pritt – as this is will stick it to the paper I will print the plate on.
More to come ……
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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