I recently started to do quick sketches of heads from newspapers that I’d cut out and stuck in my scrapbook. Just 2 minutes for practice at getting down the essentials of a face, not the details. It’s good practice. I used to sketch out and about all the time, but I’ve become more reclusive since Covid lockdown.
It’s that time of year again, when I dig out Husb’s digital drawing of Snowflake Sparta Puss to wish everyone Nadolig Llawen, Merry Christmas, Cool Yule. Have a good one xxx
I’ve posted a couple of old sketchbook drawings recently, of drawings I did on cold, dark evenings but here’s one from my Khadi sketchbook that I did in the daytime, It was still crisp and cold though!
It’s another cold, dark wintry night and I’m cwtched on the settee in the warm, marvelling that a few years ago I wouldn’t be at all phased at going out for a walk with my sketchbook. But you know, I’m embracing my age and happily going through my old Winter sketches instead. Here’s one from a particularly cold but crisp night when the moon threw a brilliant light onto Swansea Bay.
Twelve years ago, I was younger and fitter and didn’t think twice about going for a stroll with a sketchbook on a cold, dark Winter evening. Nowadays, to be honest, it’s hard to work up the motivation to drag myself from the settee and repeats of The Masked Singer USA. Looking back at December 2012, here’s a scribble of the Swansea Guildhall and it’s avenue of pollarded trees in the crisp, cold night.
I’ve been making some collages from recent botanical Gelli Plate prints. Here is a detail of one of them, showing the overlay of the ripped pieces of prints and the outline of some of the botanical subjects. They’re going to be scanned professionally and massively enlarged for an exhibition in January.
This #Caturday Saturday, my negative silhouette of little rescue cat Bill shows a cyanotype print of an ostrich feather. I cut the image of Bill from some very heavy textured paper that I recycled, I painted it black and started to experiment with it.
Back in November 2012, Husb and I were lucky enough to visit the wonderful country of Iceland, the original Land of Ice and Fire. The landscape was unlike anything I’ve ever seen, brutal with beautiful colours. It was freezing cold and drawing was a challenge, not only for my fingers but also my drawing materials – my pens wouldn’t work and it was too cold to get my watercolours out. I settled on compressed charcoal, soft pastels and ink. I drew into my Khadi handmade paper square sketchbook, often using both sides for the same scene.
I haven’t posted for a few days because I’ve been ill. Again! The second stomach bug in three weeks! Really fed up with it now.
This is my life at the moment, sedentary with a cat. But I can’t enjoy it because I feel rotten. Never mind, these things run their course in a week or so. This is an old sketch from years ago.
This #Caturday Saturday, my silhouette of our little Bill is on top of a cyanotype print that someone threw away, I fished it out of the paper bin! I think she looks lovely silhouetted against the ostrich feather. The image of Bill is cut out of some discarded paper too. I painted it black.
scribblah 