Ropes And Buckets

cbj2

I caught up with an artist chum from way back when recently. Chris Bird-Jones and I were in Swansea Art College in the 1970s when the world was a very different place.  Chris recently came back from an artist residency at the University of Hawai’i where she had an exhibition of the art she created there. She works mainly with glass, from monumental and architectural to tiny hand-held pieces.

She has just installed a new exhibition at the Volcano Theatre Gallery on Swansea’s High Street based on buckets, lots of small buckets made from mirror glass; she is fascinated by the potential of the mirror bucket for collecting, visually, whatever you want to put in it. Chris had a public ‘Call Out’ for ropes to hang her mirror buckets on, I was one of the artists who responded and I made a simple rope from plaited tissue paper that I had decorated with golden graphite rubbings from a woodcut block.

cbj1

I visited just after she’d finished and loved the diversity of ropes that different people had brought along, from simple rubber bands to complex sculpted pieces. The pieces were tied together visually by the two-dimensional glass buckets that hung from each piece of rope, twinkling and reflecting their surroundings.

Next Saturday Chris will be doing a talk at Volcano, sharing her experiences in Hawai’i, the work from her residency and how her practice has developed and she will introduce the work she is developing for her upcoming residency at Ruthin Craft Centre next month.

CHRIS BIRD-JONES | Glass Artist | Creative Wales Ambassador 2015.

Saturday 27th February, doors open at 3:30pm and the talk will begin at 4pm. Volcano Theatre Gallery, High Street, Swansea.

The Greyhound’s Kennel

Twlc Y Filiast

This is the first of the ancient stone monuments I drew a couple of days ago when I was trekking around muddy Carmarthenshire with an archaeologist and a film maker. The Welsh name is Twlc Y Filiast which translates as the Kennel of the (female) Greyhound, but the monument is also known as Arthur’s Table or Ebenezer’s Table. It’s a Neolithic chambered tomb. There are a number of ancient burial sites associated with greyhounds. In Welsh, greyhound is milgi (female is miliast) and means a thousand dogs (or a thousand bitches) as a greyhound was considered to be as valuable as a thousand ordinary dogs because of it’s hunting ability, absolutely vital in ancient societies.

The setting is strange and ethereal. I’m used to seeing dolmen out in the open, often overlooking the sea or set on top of a hill and it was odd seeing this in a shadowy hollow by a stream just behind the now closed* village school in Llangynog. It’s well hidden and easily missed and the route was treacherous after the many weeks of torrential rain and awful weather.

Llangynnog 1

I had almost finished the drawing when I noticed the stone face in profile, looking towards the stream and the woods on the opposite side. I drew with willow charcoal onto a vintage British paper. I had a range of drawing materials but I instinctively reached for the willow charcoal; when I reflected on my choice later I realised that I had gone for an organic, natural material that had itself come from the woods and would have been used by ancient peoples.

*Many village schools have been closed by the Welsh Government, depriving rural communities of an important resource. A national disgrace in my opinion.

The Vastness Of Time

Carreg Jack

I was out and about with archaeologist Dewi Bowen (left) and film maker Melvyn Williams (middle) yesterday, following a Bronze Age route to visit 4 sites of ancient stones. I was planning on drawing them all but this one turned out to be a bit on the short side and I couldn’t get any inspiration from it, to be honest and as it was so cold I didn’t want to stick around and draw it. Sometimes you just don’t find a connection with the subject matter.

Carreg Jack 2

Then I turned round and saw this! The spectacular Llansteffan Castle at the top of the hill. Glorious. So then I started thinking about combining the two images sometime. But not in the cold on the beach in the wind. It’s a sofa job with Adobe Photoshop.

This standing stone is ‘Carreg Fawr Nant Jack‘, which translates from the Welsh as ‘The Big Stone at Jack’s Ford’. Although it looks small now, there’s a lot of it under the sand and in the past it stood on pasture land where it would have been much taller. There’s a huge timescale captured in these two photos. The castle is almost a thousand years old, but was built on the site of a much older Iron Age fort, about another thousand years earlier, and the Bronze Age ‘Carreg Fawr Nant Jack’ could be a couple of thousand years older again.

MUD!!!

Maen I Llwydion 3

A great day out today, scrambling across the West Wales countryside with irrepressible archaeologist Dewi Bowen and inquisitive film maker Melvyn Williams, finding ancient burial sites and standing stones and drawing in the mud. This site is called Meini Llwydion (Grey Stones) and it’s near Llangynog in Carmarthenshire. After almost 4 months of rain, the ground was absolutely sodden, despite the bright, dry, sunny weather today. The mud put my new walking boots through their paces and the mud won.

Maen I Llwydion 2

People often assume that artists have an easy time of it, sitting around dabbing a bit of paint in warmth and comfort, but here’s the reality – wrestling with a drawing board in a quagmire! The acres of liquid slurry finally got the better of me and I gave up on the drawing board and loose sheets and I drew into my Daler Rowney ‘Ebony’ sketchbook with a white conte crayon. We’ll be continuing this journey across Bronze Age South Wales intermittently in coming months, as Dewi researches for his new book, Melvyn makes his documentary film and I draw inspiration from my ancestors marks on the environment.

Rehomed

 

Pentre Ifan
Pentre Ifan

Back in the Autumn last year, Husb and I spend a weekend drawing ancient monuments around Pembrokeshire – in the rain, as ever. This is one I drew at Pentre Ifan, in chalk, charcoal and pastels. I drew it over an existing drawing I made in home-made walnut ink onto antique paper of the St. Paul’s catacombs in Malta. I’m chuffed that this drawing has just been sold from Artfinder and is being rehomed in North Wales. More of my work for sale can be found by clicking on the Artfinder widget on the right hand side of this page.

Tomorrow, I’m going on my travels around West Wales again to draw more ancient sites.

A New Man

Feb 1

Here are some drawings from last week’s life drawing session at Swansea Print Workshop. This is a new model and I find it takes a while to get used to a new person to draw. I did four quick drawings to get used to the pose but it just didn’t click so I switched to drawing the head and tried freeing myself up with the markmaking, tried to get away from my usual rather conservative style.

I used willow charcoal and a white conte crayon into an A2 brown paper sketchbook.

Immense Character

I’ve come to the last of my Baby Boomer drawings for a little while as The SPace, where I have been doing these drawings since November, has now closed at the end of its temporary lease. I need to find a new place to continue the drawings over the next few months. This Baby Boomer has a face of immense character. One of the things I really appreciate about doing these drawings of my generation is seeing a lifetime reflected in these faces, so many stories, so much experience leaving their mark.

I have done 42 drawings so far into my sketchbooks and I have 58 to go to reach my target of 100. Several of my models have suggested that number 100 should be a self portrait, so I guess that’s a good idea. I hate drawing myself though because I frown so much when I’m concentrating, I look really cross.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Face Of Distinction

Another Baby Boomer sketch and I’m coming to the end of this phase of drawings, with around 40 completed. I’ve been doing them at The SPace in Swansea’s High Street but it’s now closed as our temporary 12 week lease is up, so I’m going to have to find another venue to continue my sketches. I loved doing this drawing, my model has such a distinctive face.

Spectacular

Continuing with my series of 30 minute sketches of Baby Boomers, I am so enjoying making these drawings and having conversations that are informing the future development of my work. I’m using graphite sticks into an A4 spiral bound sketchbook. I recently switched from A5 and the drawings are not so tightly cropped. I’m getting plenty of practice drawing spectacles, they’re getting easier.

Flowing Locks

This is the first profile I’ve drawn in my series of 30 minute sketches of my generation. I generally start out sitting opposite the people who come and pose for me and let people decide for themselves how they’re comfortable and then draw them. This is the first man I’ve drawn with really long hair, which I find unusual considering how so many male Baby Boomers had long flowing locks back in the day. Of course, a lot of them have lost their hair completely. I drew this with a dark grey graphite stick into an A4 spiral bound sketchbook.