Ugly, Lovely, Bonkers

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I worked on a collaborative project with fellow artist, Melanie Ezra recently. It’s an artist map, one of a series of twelve designed by artists across the country. We have chosen our own quirky route through Swansea’s city centre, pointing out the little idiosyncrasies that interest us and illustrating the walk with our artwork. Swansea is full of art, culture and history and in this little map we’re only just touching on the things that fascinate us in our ugly, lovely, bonkers city.

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The map is published by Sampson Low and is available on Amazon (here) along with the other 11 artist maps at a very reasonable price so if you want you can get your own copy and read up more about the quirky seashore city of Swansea. It’s also great as a present.

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The twelve maps are currently being exhibited at the Sunbury Embroidery Gallery, The Walled Garden, Thames Street, Sunbury-on-Thames, TW16 6AB. The show runs until May the 10th. You can find out more about the other 11 maps here. I particularly like ‘Seventeen Mundane Moments in Tate Modern’ by Peter S. Smith and ‘The Rats’ Republic’ by Dean Reddick.

 

Evil Foreshortening (Female Nude)

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Just back from life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop. I had a choice of where to sit so, thinking aloud I said, “Shall I sit side on to draw an easier pose or shall I sit front on and do the really nasty foreshortening?” My sadistic fellow artists said, as one, “Front on! Do the foreshortening!” I was daft enough to listen. It was tough.

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I started out with large graphite blocks and conte crayon onto a piece of Saunders paper, size A2, but I just couldn’t get the proportions right (bottom drawing). So I turned it over and started again with compressed charcoal and chalk (top drawing). It’s better but the foreshortening was really vicious. Oh well, good practice. It’s top quality paper and I don’t want to waste it so I’ll probably cover it with a layer of white gesso and re-use it, so this blog will eventually be the only record of the drawings.

 

 

Ratstein!

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Sparta Puss here. I managed to get my paws on the pooter box again. My trained monkeys are still busy faffing around after the rat I brought in to entertain myself. Turns out the wily rodent is some kind of genius; the stupid simians have nicknamed it Ratstein after some supposedly clever hoomin scientist. As if! It’s managed to set off two traps and grab the food without getting caught so now the hairless apes have borrowed a massive trap from some mates. It’s called The Big Cheese and they think it’ll outwit Super-rat. I caught it with just my paws – WITHOUT opposable thumbs, take note – and it’s been outwitting the monkeys for days.

In between running around shrieking like, well, like a monkey, the she-ape has been daubing dirty sticks onto some nice clean paper and claiming that the resulting mess looks like me. Poor thing. She’s deluded. Idiot.

The Dog House

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Greetings hairless apes. Sparta Puss here. It’s been a long time. My trained monkeys have been keeping me away from the pooter box but I managed to distract them for a while. It’s Spring and every year I bring them some rats to play with. Such fun. The she-ape jumps on chairs and squeals and the he-monkey does his soppy liberal thing of trying to shoo the stupid rodent out through a door before giving up and setting traps.

They’ve been curfewing me the past couple of years, locking the catflap throughout the night to try and stop me doing it, but I snuck this one in during the day and let it loose in the kitchen. It was there for days before they realised. HAHAHAHAHA!!!!! It’s great sport. I overheard them saying I’m in the dog house. Seems just like the normal house to me. Which is mine anyway. I’m going to the kitchen now to watch the monkey mayhem.

Ciao Miao 😀

Curry House Quickie

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Went out for a belated birthday curry with some of my lovely family this evening, an eat-as-much-as-you-like buffet mmmmmmmnomnomnom. They had a particularly good sag aloo. Of course, I did a quick scribble into my A5 hardbacked sketchbook with my Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens.

Fasto

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It’s been a hectic few days and it won’t let up until tomorrow afternoon, when I think I will go to bed for a few days! I was up in London last Thursday, did loads of things but managed a quick sketch on the Tube. This chap was cat-napping through his evening commute. He was fasto! I know how he feels!

Plumb Tuckered

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It’s the end of a long and tiring day, but I managed to finish the manier noir drawing I was working on. And now to bed 😪

Darkly Drawing

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Spent a happy day at the Creative Bubble artspace in Swansea with the 15 Hundred Lives collective on our monthly public art event. I’m continuing with a series of manier noir drawings inspired by a visit to Berlin a couple of winters back. I saw the Holocaust Memorial under a couple of feet of snow and it was even more powerful and awe-inspiring than normal, throwing stark shadows between the dark stelae like a German Expressionist film set.

I learned the manier noir drawing technique from Irish printmaker Aoife Layton. I started by stretching a large piece of Fabriano Accademica paper on my wall and giving it two coats of acrylic gesso. When it was dry, I scribbled over it with blocks of compressed charcoal and then rubbed it in with my hands to get a fairly even, black surface. I draw with wire wool (steel wool) and fine grade aluminium oxide paper, or sand paper, rubbing away the black to reveal tones of grey and white highlights. It gives a dramatic, sculptural, chiaroscuro effect. The phrase manier noir means ‘in the dark manner’ and is often used to refer to mezzotint prints.

These are three separate drawings; I’m working on one piece of paper because it’s easier to prepare one larger rather then lots of smaller pieces. Eventually I’ll separate them and frame them up, probably in very plain boxy frames, for an exhibition coming later this year.

A Distinguished Head

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Here’s another of the 30 minute portrait drawings I did recently at Swansea Museum. Not easy getting a likeness and a reasonable drawing in such a short time and of course I can see everything that’s wrong with it! If I was doing a formal portrait then this would have been the first of several drawings until I got it the way I like it. The sitter is very distinguished looking and I think I captured some of that with the drawing. I used Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens into an A5 ringbound sketchbook.

I’m doing another live drawing day soon with another 7 sitters. It’s part of the ‘museum experience’ I’m doing as part of the 15 Hundred Lives collective which is on until May the 17th.

Stick People

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Husb and I spent the last day of our short Belgian break having a wander around Brussels in the unseasonal heat. We stopped under the shade of a tree in a park for a while and watched while a group of young men kicked a ball around. I scribbled them, they moved fast and were very energetic so it was hard to do anything more than contorted stick figures. They remind me a bit of Lowry.

Then I drew the people lazing in the sun. I noticed that many have stooped shoulders and dropped heads because they’re constantly using Smart phones. I used a graphite stick into my A5 hardback sketchbook.