Hostility

Overgrown stones

This is my 6th month travelling around South Wales, following the legendary Trail Of The Boar Hunt from The Mabinogion and drawing the Neolithic monuments on its track and up until now we’ve only had the weather to contend with. But on our last day out we had a miserable day of relentless hostility directed at those looking for their ancestral heritage. The first site we visited was accessible via a public footpath according to the Ordnance Survey Map except the path had been blocked off with barbed wire and had disappeared anyway under a thicket of thorny undergrowth and as we were trying to find a way through the landowner appeared and started shrieking at us. So we left quickly without visiting the stone. Onto the next site which had some standing stones a few metres off the road in a field which strictly forbade access and the stones were so overgrown with grasses, red campion and giant hogweed that they could barely be seen. Then to a long barrow at the end of a long and winding public footpath that had been planted over with crops – if we’d trampled the crops we would have been guilty of criminal damage and if we’d skirted around the outside of the field, we’d be trespassing. And finally a stone in an open and public place – except it had been removed from it’s original setting and relocated. Hostility takes many forms.

 

I have been travelling across South Wales with Rhondda-born archaeologist Dewi Bowen and Swansea film maker Melvyn Williams, hunting the wild megalith, accompanied by my portable drawing board, portfolio of Fabriano paper and a bag full of assorted artist’s materials.  Dewi is researching his latest book on Neolithic monuments and Melvyn is making a documentary film of our literary and artistic adventures. All the work I’m doing will eventually be featured in a solo show in The Worker’s Gallery in the Rhondda Valley in September. If you want to know more, please click here.

If you want to see some of my other artworks, please click here.

A Subtle Intervention

long barrow 1

We went to find a long barrow hidden in a field of corn. There was supposed to be a public footpath but it had been planted over so we walked around the edge of the field until we reached the elevated ground in front of a copse of trees where there was a raised area covered in bracken, very different from the land around it. I’ve noticed that many barrows we’ve visited are barely indistinguishable from the land in which they lie, but they tend to have different plants growing on them which gives them a distinctive colour and texture to the rest of their surroundings. So although they are not large and obvious like standing stones and ceremonial circles, they exert a gently disruptive influence over the landscape, a subtle intervention.

long barrow 2

 

I have spent the past few months travelling across South Wales with Rhondda-born archaeologist Dewi Bowen and Swansea film maker Melvyn Williams, hunting the wild megalith, accompanied by my portable drawing board, portfolio of Fabriano paper and a bag full of assorted artist’s materials.  Dewi is researching his latest book on Neolithic monuments and Melvyn is making a documentary film of our literary and artistic adventures. We are following the legendary trail of the boar hunt, y Twrch Trwyth from the Mabinogion, recording the Bronze Age ancestral stones that those ancient hunters might have encountered.

All the work I’m doing will eventually be featured in a solo show in The Worker’s Gallery in the Rhondda Valley in September. If you want to know more, please click here.

If you want to see some of my other artworks, please click here.

The Caged Stones

Bowls Club

Last week I was back out on my journey across South Wales to find ancient monuments on the Trail Of The Wild Boar (Y Twrch Trwyth) from the legends of The Mabinogion. This is another of a very few stones now in an urban setting, just outside the Bowls Club in Bridgend. This particular stone is no longer in its original position, which had been allotments for many years. It was moved a few metres to make way for a car park when the new leisure centre was built. I feel uncomfortable when stones are in an urban or agricultural setting because they exist on our terms, not on the terms of those who put them in the landscape and they seem like animals caged in a zoo, unable to fulfil their potential in the wild.

 

I have spent the past few months travelling across South Wales with Rhondda-born archaeologist Dewi Bowen and Swansea film maker Melvyn Williams, hunting the wild megalith, accompanied by my portable drawing board, portfolio of Fabriano paper and a bag full of assorted artist’s materials.  Dewi is researching his latest book on Neolithic monuments and Melvyn is making a documentary film of our literary and artistic adventures. We are following the legendary trail of the boar hunt, y Twrch Trwyth from the Mabinogion, recording the Bronze Age ancestral stones that those ancient hunters might have encountered.

All the work I’m doing will eventually be featured in a solo show in The Worker’s Gallery in the Rhondda Valley in September. If you want to know more, please click here.

If you want to see some of my other artworks, please click here.

 

When Things Go Wonky

chair 2

 

Here’s the last of the drawings I did at last week’s life drawing session. It was an awkward pose to draw with some odd foreshortening and no matter how hard I tried to observe and draw, I couldn’t quite get it right. Never mind, it’s the practice that matters.

 

chair 1

 

I’m working on a series of drawings and prints that will eventually be featured in a solo show in The Worker’s Gallery in the Rhondda Valley in September. If you want to know more, please click here. And if you’d like to see some of my other artworks, please click here.

 

Building A Head

July 3d

I worked on a portrait drawing during one of the poses at life drawing session the other evening, using compressed charcoal and white soft pastel onto brown paper. I like using tinted paper as the mid-tones are a given and I find it easier to work in highlights and lowlights on top of an existing mid-tone rather than working onto white, which I find a bit inhibiting.

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I start a head by focussing on one point, often the bridge of the nose and then work up some main features in light strokes of charcoal, then I put in highlights with the white pastel and finish with the lowlights in charcoal.

 

I have spent the past few months travelling across South Wales with Rhondda-born archaeologist Dewi Bowen and Swansea film maker Melvyn Williams, hunting the wild megalith, accompanied by my portable drawing board, portfolio of Fabriano paper and a bag full of assorted artist’s materials.  Dewi is researching his latest book on Neolithic monuments and Melvyn is making a documentary film of our literary and artistic adventures. We are following the legendary trail of the boar hunt, y Twrch Trwyth from the Mabinogion, recording the Bronze Age ancestral stones that those ancient hunters might have encountered.

All the work I’m doing will eventually be featured in a solo show in The Worker’s Gallery in the Rhondda Valley in September. If you want to know more, please click here.

If you want to see some of my other artworks, please click here.

 

Powerful Woman (Female Nude)

July 2

Here’s the second drawing I did at Swansea Print Workshop’s life drawing group last night. It’s a thirty minute sketch in my large (A2 size) brown paper sketchbook using white soft pastel and black compressed charcoal. I haven’t been to life drawing for a while. I used to go regularly but my trips across the Welsh countryside to draw Neolithic stone monuments have gotten in the way since February so it was a rare treat to go along last night. Our model is an older woman; I like working with older models as their faces and bodies carry so much history. I enjoyed this pose because of the positioning of the hand in the foreground. Her hands are strong, she’s a powerful woman anyway.

 

I have spent the past few months travelling across South Wales with Rhondda-born archaeologist Dewi Bowen and Swansea film maker Melvyn Williams, hunting the wild megalith, accompanied by my portable drawing board, portfolio of Fabriano paper and a bag full of assorted artist’s materials.  Dewi is researching his latest book on Neolithic monuments and Melvyn is making a documentary film of our literary and artistic adventures. We are following the legendary trail of the boar hunt, y Twrch Trwyth from the Mabinogion, recording the Bronze Age ancestral stones that those ancient hunters might have encountered.

All the work I’m doing will eventually be featured in a solo show in The Worker’s Gallery in the Rhondda Valley in September. If you want to know more, please click here.

If you want to see some of my other artworks, please click here.

 

An Older Woman (Female Nude)

July 1

Just back from life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop, working with an older female model this week. I worked into a large, A2 size, sketchbook that’s made from brown paper and I used black compressed charcoal and a white Daler Rowney soft oil pastel. This sketch took about 12 minutes. It’s late now, I’m tired so off to bed. Goodnight / Nos Da 😀

Honeysuckle Rose

stone flora

One of the loveliest things I’m experiencing as I’m travelling across South Wales drawing ancient Neolithic stones is the flora; the lichens on the stones unchanging throughout the seasons, plants in the fields and hedgerows an ever-changing delight of colour, scent and texture. Last week’s journey to Kidwelly and Ferryside took us through hedgerows full of wild roses and honeysuckle, rhosod â llaeth y gaseg in Welsh. In Shakespeare’s plays, the little white rosa arvensis is called musk rose and the honeysuckle is woodbine, which also used to be the name of a brand of strong cigarettes many years ago. Technically, lichens are not plants but a composite life form of algae or cyanobacteria living in a symbiotic relationship with filaments of fungi and they can be many years old.

 

While I’ve been travelling across South Wales with archaeologist Dewi Bowen, drawing megaliths in the ancient Neolithic landscape, we’ve been accompanied by film maker Melvyn Williams and he’s been editing up short films as we go along. Here’s his latest instalment in the story of The Hunt / Yr Helfa. It’s just under 4 minutes long and it’s of me drawing and talking about the stones and how they inspire me……

All the work I’m doing will eventually be featured in a solo show in The Worker’s Gallery in the Rhondda Valley in September. If you want to know more, please click here. And to see more of my work for sale, please click here.

The Past: The Future

While I’ve been travelling across South Wales with archaeologist Dewi Bowen, drawing megaliths in the ancient Neolithic landscape, we’ve been accompanied by film maker Melvyn Williams and he’s been editing up short films as we go along. Here’s his latest instalment in the story of The Hunt / Yr Helfa.

Drawing the King's Quoit
Drawing the King’s Quoit

All the work I’m doing will eventually be featured in a solo show in The Worker’s Gallery in the Rhondda Valley in September. If you want to know more, please click here.

Works for sale!

An exquisite art blog from Jac Saorsa and a rare opportunity to buy some of her works if you wish.

Jac Saorsa's avatarDis/FIGURATION

The Studies for a Portrait exhibit is now closed, however for the first time I am putting up some works from the show for sale here on my website. I am hoping to raise money to fund the development of the Drawing Women’s Cancer project which is ongoing and will generate a major exhibition in November at the Hearth Gallery at Llandough hospital here in Cardiff. I am working at present on three large scale oil portraits for this project and accompanying drawings. You can find more details on the project website.

All the pieces below are from the Studies for a Portrait show. All are executed with graphite, they are signed and beautifully framed in black wood. Average size for the pieces is A3 (210 x 420mm). The price for each piece is £200 (excluding delivery)

If you are interested in purchasing any of these works please contact me:…

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