Cabinet Of Curiosities

willis

Here’s another of the 30 minute portrait drawings I did at Swansea Museum last Sunday. I have been asking people I know who are Baby Boomers to volunteer to sit for me as I want to build up a large collection of 30 minute portrait drawings over the next year or so in preparation for a large scale art project. It’s great that there has been no shortage of volunteers. It’s not easy to sit for a portrait, in public, with the artist staring intently at you and random people walking past. Swansea Museum is a pretty busy place too. So I’m grateful to my ‘Boomer’ guinea pigs.

I’m doing this as part of the 15 Hundred Lives event at the museum, it’s part exhibition and part a ‘museum experience’. It’s called PROCESS and it’s on until May the 17th so if you’re in town, check it out. Entry is free, there’s an art trail to do for the kids and the museum is a pretty special place. Dylan Thomas described it as the museum that should be in a museum. There’s still a feel of the old ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ about it.

Opening Today in London

A visual blog from Melanie Ezra with a bit of me in there too 🙂

 

Opening Today in London.

Changeable

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I did this sketch from a digital photo I took a couple of weeks ago on Swansea Beach. The weather has changed radically since then, today’s walk was in brilliant sunshine, not like the wind and drizzle these poor tourists were putting up with.

It’s a useful exercise to draw from photos occasionally, to analyse the finer details and concentrate on composition and proportion, which isn’t usually possible with speed sketching. I used a set of graphite sticks in different grades into my A5 hardback sketchbook, across both pages.

Thirty Minutes

Evans

Here’s another of the 30-minute portrait sketches I did yesterday during my drawing day at Swansea Museum. I used Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens into an A5 hardbacked spiral bound sketchbook. I would normally do a number of quick preliminary sketches so it’s quite a challenge to do a decent drawing that is also a reasonable likeness in such a short time. I have another drawing day booked at the museum early in May and I hope to eventually build up a hundred or so of these small portraits over the next few months.

All Drawn Out

Meredith

I spent most of today at Swansea Museum drawing people. I did 7 portrait drawings in 5 hours in Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens into an A5 hard backed spiral bound sketchbook. Here’s the first – of a large series I hope. And now I’m off to bed, shattered. Goodnight 🙂

Poo To Pool

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Husb and I spent a fair chunk of the day shovelling farmyard manure, transporting it from the farm to the allotment. Then a quick bath, change of clothes and off to a pool party celebrating the birthdays of 3 little relatives.

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Of course, I had to have a scribble or two. They’re very speedy sketches, kids are fast moving targets. They have such impossibly skinny legs, like bambis, you wonder how they can walk. I used graphite into my A5 hardback sketchbook.

Ready For The First Cut

ready cuts

I’ve been preparing a stack of vinyl blocks ready for cutting. I’ve drawn on them, firstly in graphite then in Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens. Each block will be printed in 4 stages; the first stage is to start cutting away the areas that will be white on the final print. Then I’ll cut the areas that will be a light grey, then the areas to be dark grey and the final cut will leave the areas to be printed in black. This is called the ‘suicide’ or reduction method as it progressively cuts away at the block until there is very little of it left. There’s no margin for error. It’ll be a lot of work to print an edition from all 12 blocks. It’s going to take a while.

Printmakers = geeks. It’s true 😀

Practice Makes Perfect (male nude)

april 09

Just back from life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop and it was a tough one this evening. The pose is deceptively difficult, with foreshortening of the hands and legs and the model leaning back made the head a bit odd too. I struggled, using several grades of graphite stick onto a vintage Saunders paper. I used a very scribbly line (to cover up mistakes lol) and measured carefully as I was drawing, but still not quite right. Still, practice makes perfect as my Nana used to say.

Is It A Hen?

hen 1

 

Husb and I visited a friend at her farm today and cut some bamboo canes for our allotment. It was gorgeous, sunny and warm; thirsty work. I grabbed the chance to get some sneaky digital shots of the fidgety chickens and had a bit of a scribble into my A5 hardbacked sketchbook with a grey graphite stick. I’ve had a bit of practice recently with our parrot visitor, Richard the Bird, so I was more familiar with the chicken – the round eye set in a faintly dinosaur-like head. I think it’s a hen but I’m not really sure how to tell.

Standing In The Sun

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The sun is out, people are flocking to the beach and there are plenty of subjects to draw. This chap was standing on the sand absorbing the heat. I drew him with a graphite stick into my A5 hardback sketchbook.