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Ripped Abstraction

Another drawing en plein air from the summit of one of the ruined cairns of Carmel. It was precarious climbing to the top, the stones are uneven, unbalanced and wobbly and I tottered with my drawing materials in a high wind. We start off at the bottom of a hill in fine sunshine but the gusts get stronger as we climb, not easy to negotiate with a large drawing board and portfolio, but I had some help from my collaborators.

I worked onto some prepared paper that I had initially soaked until it almost disintegrated and developed tortured rips in its fabric, then I gessoed it, smeared with yellow ochre acrylic, charcoal and more gesso. I sat on the pile of stones, more uncomfortable than you can imagine even though I’m pretty well-padded, and used Daler Rowney artists’ soft oil pastels to apply thin lines and streaks of the colours I saw around me in the landscape. I became completely dissociated from reality and produced the most abstract piece of art I have ever done.

I’m continuing my journey of discovery with Dewi and Melvyn as we travel along the route of the legendary Boar Hunt, Y Twrch Trwyth, from the story of Culhwch and Olwen in the Mabinogion, the book of Welsh mythology, researching, filming and drawing the ancient stone monuments along the way.

There’s more of my art to be seen in my online Gallery in Artfinder, please click on the image below to take a look. Thank you.

Stingys!

When I was a kid, we always called Stinging Nettles “Stingys”. I hated them because they always managed to find me and sting me. I also have unhappy memories of my younger years as a biker chick, looking for somewhere to wee in the middle of a field at night at a bike rally and ending up with red and sore nether regions because I couldn’t see Stingys in the dark. In recent years, as an allotmenteer, I began to appreciate them for the nutrient rich liquid manure made by steeping them in a bin of water – one of the foulest smells ever but good for the plants. And this evening I discovered another use for them – hand made paper.

I went to a short evening workshop at Swansea’s Community Farm led by local papermaker Bryan Collis. The workers and children at the Farm harvested sackfuls of nettles for Bryan to turn into pulp and then to paper. Luckily for us, Bryan had removed the ‘stingy’ from the nettles before we got our hands on them. The paper sheets I made will dry for a couple of days between boards before I get to use them.

There’s more of my art to be seen in my online Gallery in Artfinder, please click on the image below to take a look. Thank you.

The Ripped Land

Walking and working with prehistorian Dewi Bowen and filmmaker Melvyn Williams on a series of drawings of Neolithic and Bronze Age stone monuments, we fetched up on a hilltop near Llanfihangel Aberbythych, not far from Carmel in Carmarthenshire where there are the remains of three stone cairns, unfortunately badly mutilated by years of quarrying.

Now, cairns are piles of stones and that’s what they are. When they’ve been moved and degraded they’re not particularly imposing or interesting to draw so I sat on top of one of them, incredibly uncomfortable and more than a bit dangerous, and drew what I could see from the rocky summit. In the distance, the land is ripped by the quarry so I chose some paper which had been prepared with charcoal, gesso and walnut ink and went to work with artist-quality Daler Rowney soft pastels. The result is an abstracted and emotive study of the stratified and scarred landscape.

There’s more of my art to be seen in my online Gallery in Artfinder, please click on the image below to take a look. Thank you.

Creative Juices

Finishing things is something a lot of artists find hard. I used to. Once you’ve had an idea and worked it out in your head, it’s tempting to say to yourself, “Well, there it is. That’s the creative bit done. From now on it’s just graft.”

And up to a point that’s true, but these days I find that more creativity comes on stream as I work, as I draw, the mark-making, the interpretation of the subject are creative processes as well. I’ve reached number 76 in my series of 100 Baby Boomer drawings, but it’s still exciting and creative. As I talk to each new sitter, as I draw them I find more and more ideas spinning out of the murkiness of my brain, or heart, or guts, or wherever creative juices reside.

This sitter was the last that I drew at the Creative Bubble artspace, a really useful service provided by University of Wales Trinity Saint Davids – or the Art School as many of us still call it. Graduates and students are able to book it for free to use in developing our creative projects. It’s so helpful to have this available in the city centre and it’s a great way for the Art School to support local artists. Thanks Creative Bubble!!! From next week I’ll be drawing more Boomers at Galerie Simpson on Swansea’s High Street. More news of that tomorrow…..

There’s more of my art to be seen in my online Gallery in Artfinder, please click on the image below to take a look. Thank you.

Doing It In Public

This evening Husb and I went to Galerie Simpson for the launch of a new book by local journalist and author Mark Rees, “The Little Book Of Welsh Culture“, part of Swansea’s Purple Flag weekend. I did some ‘live’ drawing of the event, working in public which is always a bit nerve-wracking. I did four drawings in all, over about an hour and a half.

I prepared some sheets of paper before I went, a mixture of Italian Fabriano and vintage British papers. I stretched them and then gave them a coat of gesso and when that was dry, painted and drizzled them with my own home-made walnut ink. I don’t like working directly onto white paper. When I started, I used drawing pens at first but they were too fine so I switched to conté crayons in white, sanguine and black, which worked much better.

I did a mixture of individual and group sketches. There’s always a problem with drawing in public, people keep moving about. How very dare they?! ;D

There’s more of my art to be seen in my online Gallery in Artfinder, please click on the image below to take a look. Thank you.

Booming History

I spend some time having conversations with the Baby Boomers who sit for me and these are as important to the development of this work as the sketches. With such a wide age group, spanning 18 years, there’s a huge range of experience and history amongst us all. It’s fascinating to listen to those Boomers older than me, the ones who were old enough to take part in the political movements of the 1960s, see the counterculture evolving on the American West Coast, live in Swinging London. These are things I watched on television as a child and it’s a privilege to talk to people who were there.

There’s more of my art to be seen in my online Gallery in Artfinder, please click on the image below to take a look. Thank you.

In Profile

mcnally-j — Baby Boomer number 74 in my series of 100 drawings

I love this profile, so strong, so confident and self-assured. It’s a privilege to sit and talk and sketch with so many people of my generation. Sharing our experiences, sharing our hopes, aspirations, concerns. So many motivated, kind, committed people.

There’s more of my art to be seen in my online Gallery in Artfinder, please click on the image below to take a look. Thank you.

Son Of The Sixties

moss-s — The 73rd Baby Boomer in my series of 100 drawings

Onward! I drew another four Boomers yesterday, their birth dates varying from the Forties to the Sixties. It’s quite a wide range gap so very interesting conversations that veer across so many decades. This sitter is one of my youngest, born right at the very end of the Baby Boom.

There’s more of my art to be seen in my online Gallery in Artfinder, please click on the image below to take a look. Thank you.

Iconoclasm!

This immense and fine stone is the Brynmaen Stone on Brynmaen Farm near Llannon in Carmarthenshire. It’s on private land and we asked permission at the farmhouse and the lovely farmer sent us up to the field with his son to protect us from the frisky cows and their new young bull. So kind and welcoming. Mr. Jones senior joined us while I was drawing and told us that there had been other standing stones around but they had been destroyed about a hundred years ago at the behest of a particularly iconoclastic Christian clergyman who was determined to thwart visitors to the ‘pagan’ stones. What a shame. It’s as bad as anything the Taliban and ISIS have done in recent times and it shows how fragile our heritage and history are in the face of fanatical beliefs.

I’m continuing my journey of discovery with prehistorian Dewi Bowen and filmmaker Melvyn Williams as we travel along the route of the legendary Boar Hunt, Y Twrch Trwyth, from the story of Culhwch and Olwen in the Mabinogion, the book of Welsh mythology,researching, filming and drawing the ancient stone monuments along the way. Now that my recent solo show of these drawings, at The Workers Gallery, is over, it’s time to focus on finding a publisher for Dewi’s book and an outlet for Melvyn’s film.

There’s more of my art to be seen in my online Gallery in Artfinder, please click on the image below to take a look. Thank you.

Rose Davies at the Worker’s Gallery

Rose Davies is a Swansea-based artist, a prolific explorer of different ways of doing art and materials. Her blog as Rosie Scribblah is fun and informative. Like other artists in Women’s Ar…

Source: Rose Davies at the Worker’s Gallery

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