If you haven’t seen this cartoon blog before, please check it out. Hilarious. Well I think so anyway, but I am a bit weird 😁
Breakfast of Champions – http://wp.me/p60iCo-QR
Three Male Nudes
Just back from life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop. It’s late now and I’m tired. I did three versions of the same pose in an hour. The first, a straightforward scribbly line with a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen, size F, into a Daler Rowney A3 cartridge sketchpad.
Then I did another line drawing and worked into it with Winsor & Newton artist quality half pan watercolours. I used very stiff sable brushes with a choppy style.
And finally, in the last few minutes, I tried drawing directly with brushes, water and water colour.
And now, goodnight 😀
The Dawn Road From Reykjavik
The last few photos from my recent trip to Iceland, the road back to Keflavik airport at sunrise. It’s so far north that the dawn is about 9.30 am which is very civilised.
Once we were out of the city there were little isolated farms or homesteads dotted across the lava landscape.
The movement of the bus gave a nice smudgy effect in the foreground.
Keflavik airport is really nice, one of the best I’ve been in, super architecture, unhurried ambience, lovely food and it was a fairly short hop back to Bristol …….. and torrential rain.
Monstrous Mural And The Lizard Den
Today I joined some fellow artists to take over the keys for a new artspace in Swansea’s High Street, an area of urban regeneration. It’s a second, temporary, setting for Swansea Print Workshop and we have it for three months, to do experimental work, to exhibit, to interact with the community and to collaborate. It’s a fairly new commercial premises owned by the Coastal Group Housing Association and the area is part of the new Urban Village scheme.
We got stuck in straight away. One side of the vast space is in good nick but the other side has the most monstrous mural I’ve ever seen. The figures are either hideous – a WAG fairy princess complete with fake tan – or terrifying. Mad eyed goblins and psychopathic Medieval knights glower under a sky heavy with huge menacing crows. To cap it all, it’s been painted in graffitti spray paint so it will need quite a few coats of white to get rid of it. The ceilings are very high so we had to make sure that Health and Safety was to the fore. And there was a Lizard Den, without a lizard, but going by the smell, there was plenty of lizard wee soaked into the wood. I managed to avoid cleaning that.
Icy In The City
Some people thought we were nuts, visiting Iceland in November but it’s so beautiful! We saw the Northern Lights – I can die happy now. Proper snow that sticks, not like over here. Bright, crisp days and iced up lakes and that low slanting sunshine that makes everything glow. We walked alongside the frozen lake in Reykjavik, past a house that we had heard about the day before during our afternoon at the Icelandic Elfschool. The house had been the site of Elf sightings and contact for decades.
Like many old European cities, it has grown organically and the older parts are full of little nooks and crannies, lovely odd houses and surprises around corners. Bright paint decorates many of the corrugated metal walls and roofs and the climate in the city is warm enough for trees.
The food is fabulous! Fish is a staple, in many forms, cooked, pickled, soused, salted, smoked. Lamb is another staple and the national Icelandic Lamb Soup, Kjotsupa, is very similar to the Welsh Cawl and Irish Stew, possibly a nod to their mixed Celtic / Viking heritage. We ate mostly in Cafe Loki which has the maddest mural Husb and I have ever seen. It takes up an entire wall and has scenes from the life of the Nordic god Loki, who was a bit of a bad ‘un so it’s full of slaughtered corpses receding into the distance. But that doesn’t detract from the ambience of the cafe, nor from the delicious food.
Big Boats And Arctic Char
Husb and I have had a few days in Reykjavik, Iceland, a beautiful city. We strolled downtown in the crisp brilliant sunshine yesterday to take a look around the old dockland area. There are a lot of museums down there, the National Maritime, the Icelandic Saga and Northern Lights museums. And some lovely places to eat fresh fish too. We stopped for lunch at the Kaffi Vagninn, I stuck with standard fish and chips, delicious light batter and fluffy cod with a delicious selection of mayonnaise sauces. Husb had a gorgeous baked Arctic Char, lightly spiced on a bed of creamy, buttery sweet potato. The area is being redeveloped and it’s a lovely place to visit, walk around, eat and buy locally made goods.
I Have Seen The Lights!
I have finally seen The Northern Lights and it was a truly awesome experience, in the real sense of the word. It inspired awe and wonder. Extraordinary.
That was at the end of a long day, beginning with a walk around the fantastic Harpa opera house on the seafront, with a view of snow capped mountains across the bay.
Then we went off to explore Reykjavik on foot through the light snow and ended up at the Elfschool for 4 happy hours eating pancakes, drinking tea and listening to the school’s headmaster, Magnus Skarphedinsson, relating marvellous stories about the Icelandic elves and the people who have seen them.
On my last visit to Iceland, I had a very odd experience, seeing some strange sights. I drew what I had seen and blogged about it and I have just republished my original blog earlier today. Check it out if you want to see what I saw that time. I thought it might have been the Huldufolk ( Hidden People ) but the head of the Elf School thinks they might have been trolls. How cool is that?
The Hidden People
Visiting Iceland with Husb and yesterday spent a fascinating afternoon at the Elf School, eating delicious pancakes and listening to fascinating stories about Icelandic elves. I have reposted a blog from 3 years ago when I first visited Iceland and encountered some very strange beings. I wondered if they might be elves or the Huldufolk (Hidden People) but the head of the Elf School thinks they are more like trolls.Trolls! How cool is that?
Source: The Hidden People
The Little Volcano
I’m in the land of ice and fire, Iceland, for a few days. Arrived this morning and on the bus from the airport to Reykjavik, I snapped this little volcanic dome in the grim lava landscape. Been awake since 3am so I am going to get some shut eye now. Good night 😊
Let Sleeping Cats Lie: 2
It’s my chair. Mine. You’d never know it!
Sparta Puss won’t give me my chair back!
Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens into an A6 sketchbook.
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