Sunpan Scribbles

sunpan

I think it’s important to draw. It underpins my artistic practice. I know a lot of people who find drawing demoralising because they can’t do it “right” but it’s a hard thing to do, like playing a musical instrument and you can’t expect to turn out a perfect drawing each time, or even for the majority of times that you draw. It’s the act of drawing that’s important because you learn something from doing it.

Today I was down at The SPace in Swansea’s High Street and artist and musician Sharon Edlington Douglas popped in with her Sunpan. She played it – beautifully- to the appreciation of the knot of people in the SPace. I scribbled her. She was moving and it was a quick sketch and it’s no great work of art and won’t make it into any exhibitions, but it’s still important to do these speedy scribbles, to try and capture movement and to be in the moment. I think so, anyway.

Here’s Sharon playing her Sunpan a while back at The Bagpuss Window, with Gong musician David Pitt.

The SPace is a short-term pop-up gallery and artspace, a partnership between Swansea Print Workshop and Coastal Housing Group. It’s open 11.30 – 5.00, Wednesdays to Saturdays until mid-February at 217, High Street, Swansea SA1 1PE.

Stitching And Tying

I’m working flat out to finish this print installation made up of almost 50 small prints on Shiohara paper sewn onto handmade Tate Gallery Indian paper. I’m assembling them onto a wooden clothes horse. I had originally intended to put them on with wooden pegs but the bars are too thick for pegs so I’m stitching ribbon onto the prints and then tying them on. I’m getting there ….. maybe another couple of hours of sewing to go.

nearly there

I’ve been using a gorgeous antique Singer sewing machine, Edwardian and over 110 years old, and here’s a short video of it in action. I love old machines – I get mechanics, so easy to fix, just a screwdriver and maybe a pair of pliers. This installation will be exhibited soon at the Penarth Pier Pavilion Gallery as part of a joint exhibition between Swansea and Cardiff Print Workshops. Please click here for more details.

Another Boomer

Burton P

The latest in my series of drawings of Baby Boomers, my contemporaries, born between 1946 and 1964. This is done in a grey graphite stick. One of the nice things about doing these drawings is the conversations I am having with the people who sit for me. We’re all the same generation and have a lot in common and the conversations have been so interesting and will influence the development of the work as it goes along. I’m planning on doing 100 Boomer drawings, from life, not photos and this is number 16. Long way to go……….

Back To Baby Boomers

Hill S

I started doing a series of 30 minute sketches of Baby Boomers a few months back. I’ve had to put them on the back burner for a while but I’ve restarted and I hope to get up to 50 in the next month……

The Old Quarry

brecon walkers 1

I’ve been looking at the photos I took yesterday up on the Black Mountain, selecting some for sketches. I’m using a white conte crayon, which is quite chunky, into a Daler Rowney ‘Ebony’ spiral bound A4 sketchbook. Here’s Husb and Number One Niece walking around the site of the old lime kilns and quarry.

Quarrying took place for around 200 years, from the early Industrial Revolution until the mid 20th century and has left its mark on the landscape. There are some very well marked walks taking in the industrial history of the area. It was unseasonably warm but very misty, we were up high and there was very low cloud over the mountain. It’s not easy to draw small figures with the blunt crayon but I don’t want to transfer to ink and fine detail. I like working out of my comfort zone.

Misty Mountain

kilns 1

Husb and I joined one of our nieces for a walk today on part of the Black Mountain north of Brynaman. Between the holidays (lots of pyjama days) and the awful torrential rain and storms, we’ve been going a bit stir crazy so despite the dire weather forecast, we thought we’d head on up the mountain and see if we could get a bit of a walk to blow away the cobwebs. On a clear day, the views are spectacular but, although it was quite mild with no rain, there was very low cloud and thick mist so we stuck to a well marked path and had a decent hour’s walk heading north-east from the car park to a limestone quarry and kilns. The path was too treacherous, stony and very muddy, for me to sketch while walking so I took digital photos on my Samsung phone to draw from in the warmth of home. I used simple materials, a white conte crayon into my Daler Rowney Ebony sketchbook (A4 spiral bound). There’s a slight texture to the paper which suits the misty atmosphere and I used the crayon along its flat side rather than the point, using a bit of smudging with my finger in places. It’s a fascinating area, geologically and historically and I’ll do some more drawings over the next few days.

My Mitts

knitted mitts

I just finished knitting my new fingerless mitts. I blogged about them about a week ago, when I was still working on the first and now they’re done, purpose made for cold outdoor sketching sessions in the 2016. Sparta Puss did her best to ‘help’ me and took it as a personal affront when I took my wool back off her 😀

The Beautiful Machine

sewing 1

A while back, I had a small rubber stamp made up from a silkscreen print I did based on the fabulous Frida Kahlo, an artist I admire very much. I printed it onto small leftover pieces of a beautiful Japanese Shiohara paper that I had been using for another print job.

sewing 6

I had been wondering what to do with them and I finally decided on making them up into a self-contained installation that I will be building over the next week.The first stage is to make them more robust  – the Shiohara is a lightweight tissue and won’t take a lot of handling. However, it’s also a well-made natural fibre paper and can be sewn so I made a start by sewing them onto a very robust handmade paper – 300gsm – that I’d bought at the Tate Gallery a few years ago. I’d been wondering what to do with that as well! They really suit each other.

sewing 3

I’m sewing them on an antique Singer sewing machine. It’s Edwardian and dates from around 1904 and it’s a great piece of mechanical engineering as well as being extremely beautiful. It’s so finely balanced, it’s a joy to use. I’ll be carrying on with this in a couple of days, after the holiday.

So a very happy New Year to everyone, I really appreciate you looking in at my blog. Blwyddyn Newydd Dda i chi gyd.

 

 

Thank you, Diolch x

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog. Thank you, all you people who have subscribed and who read my blog. I really appreciate it and also the comments and feedback I get. Knowing that you are reading it keeps me going. Have a lovely New Year. Blwyddyn newydd Hapus i chi gyd xxxxxx

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 33,000 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 12 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

 

Out Of The Gloom

window 2

I’m ploughing on with atmospheric sketches based on digital photos from the old church in Swansea that I visited a few weeks ago. I’m trying to keep it as minimal as possible, with more black than white, emphasising the chiaroscuro. I’m using conte crayon into an A4 ‘Ebony’ sketchbook by Daler Rowney. I took the photos on my Samsung phone and downloaded them into Adobe Photoshop where I did a bit of tweaking to bring up the black balance, then I drew from the adjusted photos.