Here’s the second drawing I did at last week’s life drawing group at Swansea Print Workshop, working with an older female model. I used a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 with a free Markers app. There’s a slideshow below showing the development of the drawing.
For 2 years the “15 Hundred Lives” art collective that I am part of has been running public access art events monthly at the Creative Bubble artspace in Swansea’s city centre. Each month we have guest artists working with us and it’s a privilege to have worked with 26 guests since we started and interacted with hundreds and hundreds of visitors, members of the public who have seen us on Facebook or on this blog or in the local paper and have come in to see what it is that artists do all day and how we do it.
This month we celebrated our second birthday and our guests, Jacki Phillips and Melanie Ezra, thrilled our many visitors with their fine art knitting and multi-layered collage respectively. And we had so many people coming in and engaging directly with artists and art in the making. It’s fabulous. We are so committed to demystifying art and making it inclusive and accessible and this great venue, a partnership between University of Wales Trinity Saint Davids and Swansea City Council, is making it happen. I love doing this. I love meeting people and explaining what I’m doing.
I’ve spent two days working with the 15 Hundred Lives art collective in the Creative Bubble artspace, giving the public open access to our working processes and at the same time putting the finishing touches to the last pieces of work for our upcoming exhibition at Oriel Ceri Richards. Here I’m drawing onto vintage paper that I’d prepared by squeegeeing black and gold acrylic screen print inks straight onto the paper, to break up the tyranny of the white. I’m working onto it with chalk, compressed charcoal and white conte crayon. I’ve broken away from my usual practise of working directly from life, drawing instead from my imagination. The imagery that’s emerging has been influenced by some visits I made about three years ago to Berlin and Iceland, but more of that later. Now to bed. I’m shattered!
I’ve been here all day with artists and other people, having an arty time. Here’s Melanie Ezra’s take on it 🙂
I’ve been at the Creative Bubble in Swansea today as part of an event run by artists group Fifteen Hundred Lives.
It’s been busy, really busy. I’ve barely had time to make any artwork. Usually there’s a steady flow of interesting people who are curious about art and inbetween comes a heap of artmaking. But today has been unprecedented.
This is the kind of atmosphere and engagement that art should have. All galleries should have this vibe. At the Creative Bubble there are no barriers between artists and audience. Here everyone is equal. Here no question is awkward and everyone is so passionate about what they’re doing that criticism is a welcome addition to the creative process.
We’ll be here again tomorrow 12:30pm til 5pm tomorrow. Come and join us. Creative Bubble, Cradock St, Swansea.
Just back from life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop with a couple of studies of heads. Our model is a retiree and she’s been modelling for us for some years. I love drawing the faces of elders, so interesting and so much life written across them. I used my Samsung Galaxy Tablet Note 8 with the free Markers app. There is a slideshow below with the different stages of the drawing.
I mostly use the stylus to draw but tonight I used my finger as well, jabbing it onto the screen, a strangely satisfying feeling.
The boring, mundane side of being an artist. It isn’t all about creativity. I have an exhibition coming up next week and the work has to be framed and, being a skint artist, I can’t afford to take over 2 dozen works to the framers so I’m knuckling down and doing it myself. It’s a mixture of linocuts and drawings, a new body of work.
I’m working at the Creative Bubble Artspace for a few days, with the other members of the 15 Hundred Lives art collective. It’s really useful to have the space to spread out and work together, discussing the mix of our work and how we’re going to frame and hang it.
On Friday and Saturday, it’s the second anniversary of our monthly public art events. We open the doors of the artspace and invite the public to come in and see how artists work, what we do all day. We’ll be celebrating with cake, Victoria Sandwich and Lemon Drizzle. And art of course. Click here to find out more.
Here are the vinyl blocks I printed yesterday, inked up and ready to go. They’re about 7 x 9 inches each. They’ve been printed singly but I like the look of them grouped together in a block and might print a couple of sheets like this. But that’ll have to wait until after I’ve finished mounting and framing all the work for my upcoming exhibition at Oriel Ceri Richards from August the 21st.
I drew, cut and printed these at Swansea Print Workshop on an antique Victorian Columbian printing press.
Lots of Swansea things here including our love of eating seaweed and an arty map by yours truly and Melanie Ezra
Up and out early today to finish the second colour on the last four vinyl blocks. Done and dusted. I’ve made a series of 8 small and 4 not so small block prints for the exhibition I’m a part of in a couple of weeks. The imagery has been inspired by a visit I made to Berlin a couple of winters ago and in particular seeing the Berlin Holocaust Memorial under a deep white muffled blanket of snow. I’ve used softcut vinyl and Intaglio Printmaker’s relief / litho ink mixed 50:50 with extender onto Japanese Hosho paper. I printed them on the antique Columbian press at Swansea Print Workshop, a beautiful example of Victorian machinery, still in use.
The vinyl is very good, especially with the smaller pieces, but rather floppy which made placing the larger pieces a bit difficult. In future, I’ll glue larger blocks onto some thin plywood. I used the shiny side of the Hosho paper and found that mixing the rather stiff ink with extender gave the best results I’ve had so far with blockprints.
Next? Mounting and framing.
Greetings hairless apes. Sparta Puss here. I have taken control of the bald monkeys’ pooter box while they are distracted. The she-ape was cutting some soft floppy stuff called vinyl just now because she has to print it in the morning and I thought I’d be helpful and lend her a paw. She was not happy about it, the ungrateful chimp. “Not a good idea with such sharp tools around”, she squealed. They all squeal you know, the monkeys. She locked me out of the room! So I got my paws on the ‘pooter box and now I can tell the world what an idiot she is.
And yes, that is a zombie garden gnome in the background. Stupid monkeys.
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