The Glamour

The Glamour
The Glamour

Continuing with my series of drawings of Baby Boomers, my latest model is at the top end of the demographic and is now aged 70. I have known her for over 40 years and she is still probably the most glamorous woman I know, always beautifully dressed and groomed, the sort of person who makes heads turn when she walks into a room, not because of outrageous clothes or acres of bare flesh but simply because she oozes sprezzatura, an effortless impression of elegance, confidence and charm. In Celtic mythology, the glamour was a magical ability to weave spells on humans.

I’ve been doing these recent portraits at The SPace on Swansea’s High Street. It’s been a short-term project in partnership between Swansea Print Workshop and Coastal Housing Group and it comes to an end on Saturday. It’s been a lovely venue for doing these portraits and I’m going to have to find somewhere else to draw them from now on, I still have to do about 60 of the 100 I plan to draw. I drew this with a mid-grey graphite stick into an A4 spiral bound sketchbook.

Happy Face

 

Happy Face

Here’s another of my baby Boomer drawings. This model had a very happy face, even when she was relaxing for a 30 minute drawing session. I’m up to around 40 sketches now and most people’s faces when they’re relaxed have neutral or even intense expressions, just a few have a smiley face. This is drawn into an A4 spiral bound sketchbook with a graphite stick.

Pensive

Pensive

 

Here’s another Baby Boomer who has kindly posed for my series of, eventually, 100 sketches of my generation. It’s interesting that the way people look when I’m drawing them is sometimes a bit different to how they normally look. Here is someone who is normally a very smiley person but you can’t keep a smile going for half an hour or so, it’s a strain. So people’s faces relax down and and show a different aspect; this portrait is quite pensive and thoughtful. I drew this in graphite in my new  A4 spiral bound sketchbook. I was using an A5 sketchbook but I filled it and thought I’d go up a size.

Drawing At An Exhibition

feb 07 a

Husb and I braved the atrocious weather yesterday and drove down to Narbeth, a delightful small town in Pembrokeshire where the excellent Oriel Q Gallery is hosting a new exhibition from Swansea artist Keith Bayliss, “Swsana And The Elders“. We attended an ‘in conversation’ between Keith and Sally Moss. Keith’s work is made up of drawings, paintings and sculptural pieces in a site-specific installation with a soundscape. It’s fantastic and runs until February the 27th. It’s worth taking the trip down, Narbeth is a lovely place to visit with several galleries and a great pottery.

I was so engrossed that I didn’t do any sketches but here’s a drawing I did from a piece in a previous exhibition by Keith in the Mission Gallery in Swansea.

Life Drawing – Female Nude (parental guidance suggested)

chris 1
Portrait study, about 30 minutes

I try to get along to life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop as often as I can, to get in the practice. It’s not always easy, it’s quite late in the evening and sometimes I’m so tired it’s hard to focus. This was one of those weeks. I did a couple of quick sketches to warm up but I didn’t think I was getting anywhere so I did a study of our model’s hand and then a longer study of her face. I used willow charcoal and white conte crayon into an A2 size brown paper sketchbook.

And It’s Goodbye From The SPace

panorama
Panoramic view of the lovely SPace

Hurry and see this artspace before it disappears! Back in the middle of November, some members of Swansea Print Workshop got together to run a short-term popup gallery and artspace in Swansea’s run-down High Street, an area of social regeneration. We had a 12 week lease from Coastal Housing group and we painted and cleaned, hung prints and drawings on the walls and opened to the public 4 days a week. The rest of the time we went in and worked on art stuff, sometimes alone and sometimes in small groups.

A press feature back at the beginning.....
A press feature back at the beginning…..

And now we’re coming to the end of the lease. We recently installed a print and drawing-based installation, ‘Identity‘, led by Pip Woolf and inspired by work with people with dementia, which has brought in a lot of intrigued visitors and we’re closing with a ‘Goodbye Tea’ on Thursday February the 11th from 5.00 to 7.00, with lashings of home-made cake.

The collaborative installation instigated by artist Pip Woolf
The collaborative installation instigated by artist Pip Woolf

 

Please join us if you’re in the area and watch this SPace as we’re hoping to carry on in some shape in coming months……..

 

The SPace is at 217, High Street, Swansea, Wales, UK until February the 13th.

Specs And Beards

Roberts A

I’m on a bit of a roll with the baby Boomer sketches – here’s another. Over the years I’ve concentrated on life drawing and whole figure sketches, portraiture is fairly recent and I’ve fund that the two most difficult things to draw are spectacles and beards. And here is my latest model with both!

A Focussed Face

20160201_1920482.jpg

I’m drawing quite a lot of fellow artists as I’m working my way towards 100 sketches of 100 Baby Boomers and this is the third artist who has drawn me right back. It’s quite good fun when it happens. I know that I frown when I’m concentrating and other people sometimes have a ‘focussed face’ too. This artist tended to push her tongue under her lower lip as she drew. I used a mid-grey graphite stick into an A5 spiral bound sketchbook. Some people have asked why I don’t use photos, but the experience of sitting and having conversations with people is an important part of the process. It might result in a less accurate likeness but the drawings are more animated and, in my opinion, more alive and reflect the time we spend together.

Back In The ’70s

wp-1454355066247.jpeg

I’m cracking on with my series of Baby Boomer 30-minute sketches at the moment and this was a very intense drawing, with both of us very quiet and focussed. We were in art college together back in the 1970s and it seems like such a little time ago, but four decades have flown by. Drawn with a mid-grey graphite into an A5 spiral bound sketchbook.

Back At Me

Hiscott A

Another Baby Boomer with wild curly hair this morning and also another artist who drew me right on back. I decide what drawing materials to use when I sit down to draw. Some people are suited to drawing pens (Faber Castell Pitt) and some to graphite (I use a variety in stick form). Graphite seemed best suited to her remarkable unruly hair. I have enjoyed drawing people at The SPace on Swansea’s High Street. We only have 2 weeks left of our 12 week lease so I’m making the most of drawing people in these rather lovely surroundings.