Fleeting Moments

Evans C

I’m on a roll with the Baby Boomer sketches. I’m trying to do as many as possible at The SPace before our lease runs out in mid-February. If there are any Baby Boomers in the Swansea area who fancy posing for a 30 minute sketch and being part of this project, please get in touch. I can’t guarantee that it will look exactly like you – if I was doing a formal portrait I’d do loads of drawings over several sittings. Sometimes the sketches look very much like the sitter, sometimes not and sometimes just a bit. But the important thing for me is meeting and talking to other Baby Boomers and capturing those fleeting moments in a quick drawing.

Baby Boomers are those born between 1946 and 1964. I’m aiming to draw a hundred Baby Boomers over the next few months. I’m up to almost 30. Eventually the drawings will be converted to photographic silkscreens and put into a print installation.

Velvet Loons

Lew

I’m inviting people to come down to The SPace on Swansea’s High Street to be drawn for my series of 30 minute drawings of Baby Boomers. I’m aiming to do 100 in all and I reached number 23 today. Eventually I’ll be using all 100 images in a large installation, still in the early planning stages, but for the time being I’m enjoying talking and drawing. An important part of the whole experience for me is the series of conversations I’m having, discussing the landmarks in our lives, the things that are iconic, the experiences we had. It’s odd that the Baby Boomers are now more or less the elder generation, it seems hardly any time ago we were partying in our velvet loons and platform boots back in the 1970s (and 1960s and 1980s).

The SPace is a temporary outreach pop-up gallery and studio from Swansea Print Workshop and Coastal Housing Group. It’s open Wednesdays to Saturdays, 11.30 – 5.00 until mid-February.

A Shared History

Carroll M

I’m carrying on with my 30 minute drawings of Baby Boomers and here’s another. It’s a lovely experience for me, I get to draw and also to sit and talk with lovely people as well. I’m not sure it’s such a nice experience for the people who sit for me – being stared at by me for half an hour. A lot of my sitters are local, well, all live locally, but some are from other places originally and it’s interesting for me to listen to their experiences and how they differ from mine. Most of us have something in common – we share a similar culture and history, but many differences as well.

Quickies

jan 6
five minute pose

At the start of our life drawing sessions at Swansea Print Workshop we have a few quick warm-up poses, typically no longer than 5 minutes each. They’re useful, especially if I’ve had a break and I’m a bit rusty. The first one is often awful; this one looks like Mr. Blobby, awkward, ugly and completely out of proportion. The second is much better, but still a bit out of proportion. The third pose is where I’m getting into my stride though, comfortable with the materials – chalk and willow charcoal into an A2 brown paper sketchbook – and comfortable with the model’s proportions.

 

First Nude Of The Year

jan 5

Back to life drawing sessions at Swansea Print Workshop last night, the first of the year but I only stayed for the first hour because I went off to see The Good, The Bad And The Ugly at Swansea’s newest cinema, Cinema & Co – I’d forgotten what a brilliant film it is.

Anyway, I ended up getting the most foreshortened view possible of our model – oh joy. I’m rusty because I’ve had a few weeks off, well about a month, so this was a challenge. I recorded it on my digital phone as I went along so you can see all the mistakes!

 

 

I drew into an A2 sketchbook made up of brown paper and used white chalk and Winsor & Newton willow charcoal. The brown paper provides a handy mid-tone. Our model is an older man, so interesting to draw.

From January 15th to February 8th, with some of my installations and lino prints in Penarth
From January 15th to February 8th, with some of my installations and lino prints in Penarth’s Pavilion Pier Gallery

And if you’re in Penarth in the next couple of weeks, please visit the Penarth Pier Pavilion Gallery where there’s a joint exhibition of work from Swansea and Cardiff Print Workshops, including some print installations I recently worked on and some of my lino prints.

Top End Boomer

Gibson G

And another recent Baby Boomer sketch, using a graphite stick into an A5 spiral bound sketchbook. This is someone at the upper end of the Boomer demographic, which goes from 1946 to 1964. As a generation we cover a huge range of cultural influences, music from rock’n’roll through rock, glam rock and heavy metal to punk; art from Abstract Expressionism through Pop Art to the beginnings of Conceptual art and politics from Socialism through Thatcherism and Blairism and back to Thatcherism again . Interesting times.

Drawing Real People

Green J

After getting some installations ready for a new exhibition in Penarth, “Print From Two Cities”, which I helped to install yesterday, I’m back to drawing my series of 30 minute portraits of Baby Boomers, my generation, born between 1946 and 1964. I’m aiming to do 100 of these drawings and so far I’ve done 20. Long way to go. Someone asked me why I don’t draw from photos, but I think that my drawings from photos look just like that, drawings from photos. Part of the process of doing these portraits is having conversations with real people, finding common ground and also where our experiences differ. It’s so interesting and sparks ideas for how to develop from this work. Talking to people while I draw them also helps me to do more animated drawings. Drawn with a graphite stick into an A5 spiral bound sketchbook,

LAST CHANCE TO SEE Print From Two Cities

 

INVITE2

 

Only a few more days to catch this exhibition of contemporary printmaking from Swansea and Cardiff Print Workshops – it’s last day is Monday the 8th of February.
This exhibition brings together some of the best recent print work from members of Cardiff Print Workshop and Swansea Print Workshop. It celebrates the work of these two contemporary organisations, both dedicated to the art of printmaking in Wales today with artists Eleanor Whiteman; Anne Giles Hobbs; Judith Stroud; Rose Davies (Rosie Scribblah); Kara Seaman; Sally Williams; Sue Edwards; Bill Chambers.

Please pop in to the exhibition – Penarth is a lovely place well worth a visit 🙂

hung
‘Hung’, a print-based installation from Rosie Scribblah

Penarth Pier Pavilion, The Esplanade, Penarth, CF64 3AU

The Cat And The Monkeys

sparta 1
Sparta Puss, about 1 minute of scribbling

Greetings hairless apes. Sparta Puss here, taking over the pooter box once again. It’s been a while but I’ve been busy, y’know, eating, sleeping, getting a little chunky to keep me warm through the winter, usual stuff. Something called Christmas happened and my bald monkeys gave me a tree to climb and it was full of baubles for me to throw around and I had lots of pretty paper to shred around the house and something called tinsel that I really enjoy swallowing because it makes the furless simians quite hysterical. And so many new boxes to sit in. They took the tree away a few days ago but they’re still finding baubles around the house. I hid them. Hah! And then I dumped a dead rat by the windowsill of the monkeys’ bedroom and the she-ape got even more hysterical than when I ate the tinsel. Bwahahahaha!!!!!

sparta 2
Sparta Puss, about 4 minutes of scribbling

The she-ape’s been making scribbles with dirt from a stick onto some paper and claiming that it looks like me again. She’s an idiot.

Met A Monkeh

Went to a wedding, met a monkeh! Seemed like a nice chap.

monkeh

On the arts front, I have finally finished the print installations that I’ll be taking to the Penarth Pavilion Gallery for a new show that opens next week, with work from Swansea and Cardiff Print Workshops.

hung

These small stamped images of Frida Kahlo were developed from a screenprint I did last summer. I did a series on nine women artists who inspire me and I made the rubber stamp of Frida as an experiment and I really like the result so I’m hoping to do the rest of the artists in the series. I printed these on Shiohara paper and stitched them to a heavyweight Tate Gallery Indian paper and sewed ribbon onto them so I can tie them to the wooden clothes horse.

constrained

These cyanotypes from drawings I made of elderly women are printed onto pieces of Bockingford paper cut to a Victorian corset pattern and I’ve used eyelets and ribbon to tie them to the wooden clothes horse. I’ve been working on these for ages and it’s been lovely to get away today for a family wedding, my wonderful nephew and his beautiful wife. Top wedding and great food at the Oxwich Bay hotel on the Gower Peninsula. Spectacular scenery despite the torrential rain.