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An Early Night

I spent today at the lovely Creative Bubble Artspace in Swansea’s city centre, drawing Baby Boomers. I got through six today, which takes me up to sixty five of my target of one hundred by the end of the year. And now I’m tired so off for an early night ……

Tea with me at The Workers Gallery – a chance to see my new solo show with lashings of tea and homemade cakes – bara brith, elderflower and lemon sponge, orange polenta gluten free cake, Victoria Sandwich, parmesan biscuits – and art in the gorgeous Cynon Valley.

There’s more of my art to be seen in my online Gallery in Artfinder. Please click here to visit. Thank you.

Just Visiting!

Forging ahead with the Baby Boomer portraits, here’s one who visited today and was scribbled …. there’s no escape! Any Baby Boomers wandering in through my front door will be nabbed! Tomorrow I have six more Boomers booked in for some intensive sketching at the Creative Bubble Artspace in Swansea. It’s a lovely space leased by University of Wales Trinity Saint Davids (what a mouthful, it was just called ‘The Art School’when I went there back in the days of the dinosaurs). Anyway, students and graduates can use it for their art projects, it’s a great way of supporting local creatives and I’ve booked it for a few days this month to draw more people of my generation. I drew this portrait with a 6B chunky graphite stick into my A4 hardbacked, spiral-bound sketchbook.

Tea with me at The Workers Gallery – a chance to see my new solo show with lashings of tea and home-made cakes in the gorgeous Cynon Valley.

There’s more of my art to be seen in my online Gallery in Artfinder. Please click here to visit. Thank you.

Tea And Cake And Art And Stuff

Invitation

Lashings of home made cakes and savouries, tea, coffee and art at The Workers Gallery in Ynyshir on Saturday afternoon, 10th September. Please call in and join me for a cuppa. Would be lovely to see you there 😀

The Warrior Returns

I started working with this particular model some time ago, when a young student with plans to join the army. I have masses of drawings of him which I developed into many prints – monotypes, etchings and even the occasional painting. We’ve had a gap of several years while he has been away travelling as a professional soldier but we met up again recently and hope to resume our professional relationship in the future. I did a couple of drawings, just some quick ones to familiarise myself with his features. It takes a while to get back into working with someone after a gap, I’m a bit rusty but now I have some drawings to refer to, I can see where I’ve gone wrong and what I need to do.

Tea with me at The Workers Gallery – a chance to see my new solo show with lashings of tea and home-made cakes in the gorgeous Cynon Valley.

There’s more of my art to be seen in my online Gallery in Artfinder. Please click here to visit. Thank you.

Straight Ahead

When I’m drawing Baby Boomers, I let people choose how they will sit for me, whether to look straight ahead, or off to one side, or up, or down. It varies a lot. This sitter looked directly at me but because he’s a lot taller, there’s a surprising amount of foreshortening on his face, with a much larger jawline than there would be if we shared the same eye level. It makes him look much sterner than he really is. He had some cool reflections in his specs too.

Tea with me at The Workers Gallery – a chance to see my new solo show with lashings of tea and home-made cakes in the gorgeous Cynon Valley.

There’s more of my art to be seen in my online Gallery in Artfinder. Please click here to visit. Thank you.

Sharing Experiences….

And another Baby Boomer – I’m getting towards my target of 100 by the end of the year, each drawing a maximum of thirty minutes. But I allow about an hour and a half for each sitter, because it’s such an important part of the process to talk to everyone, about how they feel about being a Baby Boomer, what it means to them. It’s fascinating for me, as we become the ‘elder’ generation, to share the experience with others, to discuss, to take stock, to try and figure out where we’ve been and where we’re going……

Tea with me at The Workers Gallery – a chance to see my new solo show with lashings of tea and home-made cakes in the gorgeous Cynon Valley.

There’s more of my art to be seen in my online Gallery in Artfinder. Please click here to visit. Thank you.

Stalking The Prehistorian

Since February, I’ve been stomping across the wild places of South Wales hunting the wild megalith, stalking prehistorian Dewi Bowen and filmaker Melvyn Williams. I’ve been drawing as I’ve gone along and these drawings have just opened in my first solo show at The Workers Gallery in Ynyshir. Melvyn has been filming throughout the months and has been editing up short films as he’s gone along. Here’s his latest with Dewi talking, in his inimitable way, about the ancient monuments, the ancestral stones and Y Twrch Trwyth (The Boar Hunt).

If you’d like to see the drawings and some more of Melvyn’s films, please come to tea with me at The Workers Gallery – a chance to see my new solo show with lashings of tea and home-made cakes in the gorgeous Cynon Valley.

There’s more of my art to be seen in my online Gallery in Artfinder. Please click here to visit. Thank you.

The Cold War

I carried on with my 30-minute Baby Boomer drawings today at the Creative Bubble artspace. I’m not just drawing, but I also have a conversation with each sitter about what being a Baby Boomer means to them, what has been iconic about our generation. It’s fascinating to talk to each person and now that I’ve drawn 57 people, I’m building up a picture of what’s common to us all and what’s unique about each individual’s experience. The Cold War is something that affected most of our lives and linked to that, the nuclear arms race and campaigns about nuclear power. This sitter wasn’t brought up in Britain and it was so interesting to talk around how different our childhood and adolescent experiences have been.

I started to use a different medium for drawing today, a different make of graphite stick that is much softer than the ones I’ve been using so far and this changed my style, much freer, much more scribbly.

Tea with me at The Workers Gallery – a chance to see my new solo show with lashings of tea and home-made cakes in the gorgeous Cynon Valley.

There’s more of my art to be seen in my online Gallery in Artfinder. Please click here to visit. Thank you.

Back To Booming

After a totally hectic month building up to installing my new solo exhibition in the most excellent Workers Gallery in Ynyshir, I have my life back …. well until tomorrow when I will be drawing some more Baby Boomers. I’m trying to schedule a Baby Boomer drawing day once a week until I finish the 100 thirty-minute portrait sketches that I’ve set as my target.

Here’s one I did in my last Boomer session, a very strong, decisive countenance. I am drawing into my hardbacked, spiral bound A3 size sketchbook with a graphite stick. When I started the series I was using drawing pens, but I think a graphite stick is better suited to 30 minutes as I have to work quickly and freely and drawing pens force me into too much detail.

Tea with me at The Workers Gallery – a chance to see the exhibition with lashings of tea and home-made cakes in the gorgeous Cynon Valley.

There’s more of my art to be seen in my online Gallery in Artfinder. Please click here to visit. Thank you.

Done (In)

All done. Exhibition installed at The Workers Gallery ready for opening tomorrow. I’m plumb tuckered out and ready for bed.

There’s no formal opening but we’re having a ‘Tea With The Artist’ on Saturday September 10th and there will also be an end-of-show event on Friday 23rd so please put these dates in your diary if you fancy a trip to the gorgeous Cynon Valley.

And now to bed. Nos da 😀

There’s more of my art to be seen in my online Gallery in Artfinder. Please click here to visit. Thank you.

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