Can’t See For Looking!

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Sometimes you can’t see the wood for the trees. I’ve made a start on a wall drawing onto newspaper, working from a photograph and it’s only now that I’ve put the photos onto the computer that I can see that the legs are too short! I could NOT see that when I was doing it. Leonardo da Vinci recommends checking your work in a mirror regularly because it helps to spot the wrong bits. I’ll have to take his feet down over the skirting board.

I’m working in an old shop in the centre of Swansea; it’s on loan until it gets demolished and I’m there with some other artists; we’re using as a pop-up artist’s studio. I papered the wall with newspaper and blocked some basic figures in white emulsion. I like working onto newspaper, I can incorporate images and headings into the work. I also like the texture of the charcoal on top of the brushstrokes and the wrinkles in the newspaper. I’ll be carrying on for a couple of weeks and when the demolition crew moves in, it’ll all be knocked down to make way for urban regeneration.

If you’re on Facebook, you can find out more about our temporary artspace here.

One From The Archives :4 The Name Game

The Towel

Drawing is the basis of everything I do. Sometimes it can be the finished product itself but more often it is the starting point for work in many different media.

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Once I decide that a rough sketch is worth developing, I like to see how many different ways I can expand the idea.

This is a very small scribble I made in a life drawing session a couple of years ago in a sketchbook size A5. I drew the reflection of the model in a mirror.

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Curlicue

I developed this into a painting (size A3). I don’t often paint but I wanted to do some technical exercises with oils. This allowed me to play with colour and pattern to create a mood around the form, which led to the title, Curlicue. Finding names for pieces is always hard, in my experience.

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Yellow Towel

I then scaled up the drawing and used it as the basis for a full colour monotype, along with it’s ‘ghost’ below. I concentrated on developing a denser background and the complexities of skin tones.

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The Pale Yellow Towel

The richness and subtlety of the colours in this technique give a very detailed surface that is endlessly fascinating. These two, Yellow Towel and The Pale Yellow Towel are larger again, A2 size. See the problems I have with naming?

When you have the basic drawing, you can also change things around and have some fun; make it darker and more brooding by using a wider variety of drawing materials or even viewpoints.  You can let your imagination and the lines run riot, like this one I’ve called Black And Yellow. I wonder if there’s a ‘Naming Art Tutorial’ somewhere on the Internet?

Black and Yellow
Black And Yellow

And finally, back to A5 and a photopolymer plate etching (below). Here I can go back to basics with the human form but transform the background into a luxurious tapestry. I called this The Towel. I know. I know.

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The Towel

I wonder where I’ll go next with it? The possibilities are as endless as the techniques available.

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One From The Archives :3

The Blanket

Another one from the archives; this time an etching.  I’ve been incorporating text into my drawings and mixed media work for some time, but it’s much harder to do so with most printmaking techniques because you have to work back to front. Luckily, the photopolymer method allows you to do this without the fear of getting it wrong.

Blanket

The luxurious sensuality of the surroundings in this image contrast with the stark and simple portrayal of the human form. This is an etching of one of the nude models I work with and is developed from a study drawn with Renaissance materials, inspired by artwork I did for a television series about da Vinci.

For the print geeks out there, this is s photopolymer steel plate etching, hand-printed using oil pigment onto BFK Rives cotton rag paper.

You can see more about the techniques in an earlier blog here.

If you would like to own this drawing is it available from Artfinder.

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The Christine Keeler Chair

keeler chair

It’s our third day at The Bagpuss Window, a new artspace in an old shop in Swansea’s High Street, an area of urban regeneration, which means it’s really run down. We were lent some funky chairs, copies of the iconic Arne Jacobsen chair, made famous in Britain by an infamous photograph of the callgirl, Christine Keeler during the Profumo scandal during the 1960s.

I though it would be a bit cool to invite visitors to The Bagpuss Window to pose on the chair like Christine Keeler, except with their clothes on. Here they are so far.

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One From The Archives :2

The Carpet

The inspiration for a piece of work can often be the slightest of things. Drawing is all about looking and the closer you look, the more you see. At first glance you see a solid figure. Look again and the texture and pattern of the background can draw you in.

 

Carpet
The Carpet

That’s certainly what happened with this print. The technique is known as direct line monotype, it produces a unique artwork in the style of a line drawing. Here I have used archival-quality oil-based litho ink onto Zerkall paper.

The technique is similar to using a piece of old fashioned carbon paper but with much better ink and paper.

It allows me to be very free with my pencil, to follow the patterns and shapes in front of me with a spontaneity that more technology dependent printmaking methods might stifle.  I like to roam with my pencil so the fantastic, almost fractal markings on the carpet let me explore to my heart’s content.

You can see more about the techniques in an earlier blog here.

If you would like to own this drawing is it available from Artfinder.

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Bling, Seagull And Iconic Chair

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I did this tableau with mannequins and some of my drawings.

Day 2 at The Bagpuss Window, the newest arty shenanigans in Swansea’s High Street. Fellow artist Melanie Ezra and I have opened a temporary pop-up artspace in an old shop due for demolition (thanks Coastal Housing group for the loan). The idea of The Bagpuss Window is that we, along with any other artists who drop in, will fill the window with an ever-changing display of art, work-in-progress, inspirational objects, tools and equipment that we use…..

We’re also encouraging local people and passers-by to pop their heads round the door and interact with us. Yesterday, a couple of local lads had a chat, liked what they saw and came back today with a painting on driftwood of a blinged-up seagull for The Bagpuss Window (above left). Local artist Tim Kelly  dropped by with his porcine pieces (above centre and right) which went in as well.

I carried on working on something I started ages ago, a three-dimensional tableau inspired by the work I have been doing based on a visit to Berlin a few winters ago. I’m getting somewhere with it. And finally, a local group, Circus Eruption lent us half a dozen chairs – I can now sit down!!! They’re fab, copies of the iconic Arne Jacobsen chair, or as I call it, the Christine Keeler chair.

One From the Archives :1

Rinascere #4 

In addition to my daily blog, I have decided to publish work from the archives to let people see my wider body of finished work and at the same time, focus on individual pieces. I hope you enjoy.

Rinascere, is an Italian word meaning ‘to be reborn’ or ‘to revive’ and is the root of the word ‘renaissance. I identify strongly with its meaning ‘to revive’ in the light of current art trends which have moved away from traditional skills like drawing.

This image is from a series of my life drawings which I blogged about at the time . They use the rich, descriptive nature of the technique to it’s full. The wonderful texture of the paper accentuates the crispness of the pen and ink lines and gives added depth to the background washes, allowing the darker charcoal layer to impose itself, ominously.

The slightest of highlights, provided by white oil pastel, lift the figure out of the brooding shadows and draw the eye to the curves of the softly sleeping woman.

This drawing in Indian ink using a traditional dip pen is on handmade paper, prepared with black and sepia ink washes.

You can find out more about my techniques at the Techie Stuff section of this site.

If you would like to own this drawing is it available from Artfinder.

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A Boiler Suit And A Newspaper Wall

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Today The Bagpuss Window opened for business. Fellow artist Melanie Ezra and I have taken on an old shop premises as a pop-up studio and public access artspace. We did come clearing and cleaning at the end of last week and today we started working on art. Several artists wandered in to chat about the possibility of coming in and working with us over the month and one stayed a while and made a plastic door curtain for us from old carrier bags and some police crime scene tape found in the street. More artists will be joining us from time to time to work on art and put it into the ever-changing Bagpuss Window.

 

Today I donned my boiler suit and sturdy shoes and papered a large expanse of wall with newspaper. This is the base for a large intuitive drawing I’ll be doing through our stay. I also pasted the 2 ‘Bagpuss Window’ signs I made last week to the front of the shop. We have 3 groovy little changing cubicles at the back of the shop so we’re waiting for an artist to come up with a way of using them. Husb is hoping to get a webcam fixed up in the next couple of days so we can do a live stream of artists at work. A bit like Big Brother on the telly 😀

Here’s something about this week at The Bagpuss Window.

Week 1
Week 1

Weeding And A Male Nude

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After one of the wettest summers on record, we’ve had a couple of dry sunny days, so Husb and I were off to the allotment which needed a lot of work after a month of rain. I had a huge amount of weeding facing me, everything has grown huge including the weeds. I did loads of digging and now I’m suffering.

 

Here’s the last of the life drawings I did a couple of evenings ago at Swansea Print Workshop using a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and a free Markers app. I’ve saved the drawing periodically so it can be put into a slideshow of the different stages.

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Finger Blobs

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I drew this head at the life drawing group at Swansea Print Workshop a couple of evenings ago. I used my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and loaded a photo of some marbling I’d done as the background to the drawing. I used the free Markers app. I wanted to break away from detailed ‘traditional’ drawing for once, I realise that I can be very tight with my drawing. I used my fingers as well as the stylus to create the lines.

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The fingertips leave blobby marks and I liked the look of the stylus lines overlaid across the finger blobs. The slideshow traces the development of the drawing.