Distortion

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I’m doing some drawings from digital photos I took on Swansea Beach recently, to practice drawing detail and movement. Trouble is, when I downloaded the photos onto the computer and made them large enough to draw from, they have a lot of distortion. It’s not a problem, it just looks a bit fuzzy and there are some weird bits that I wouldn’t get if I was drawing from life. On the other hand, I’m not sure I’d be quick enough to draw these people walking, especially with the dog. I drew with a graphite stick into my A5 hardcover sketchbook, make unknown, it was a present.

 

The Dark Manner

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I’ve been working on some ‘manier noir’ drawings. The name means ‘in the dark manner’ and usually refers to the printmaking technique of mezzotint. I stretched the paper onto a wall originally, gave it 2 coats of gesso and when dry, I rubbed it all over with graphite block, then a rag dipped in turpentine to get a smooth slightly metallic finish. The drawing is done with wire wool and aluminium oxide paper, or fine sandpaper, removing the highlights and  paler tones. It’s a type of reductive drawing. One of the photos in the slideshow below shows how big the paper is, but I’m planning on getting three smaller drawings from it.

 

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An Older Woman (Female Nude)

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I like to work with this older model at life drawing group at Swansea Print Workshop. She is covered with blue tattoos of plants and animals that belong to the food chain; ants and flies run all over her body, chased by lizards and they swarm over her shoulders into carnivorous pitcher plants. She is very voluptuous, which is great to draw. I used my Samsung Galaxy Note and a free Markers app and it took about 45 minutes. The advantage of a digital drawing is that you can save reguarly and turn it into a slideshow which tracks the development of the drawing.

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Almost Manga

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We have some little relatives staying for a sleepover and of course, they are scribbling fodder. My little niece was cwtched on the settee watching a film and I tried to draw her. So very hard! All children are aliens! They have such weird proportions – HUGE eyes, little turned up nose, tiny chin and chubby cheeks. She looks like a Manga cartoon! Every time I tried she ended up looking like a character in a comic book! None of these actually look like her, I’m still struggling so hard to get the proportions right. I’ll get there. I’ll keep on trying. I’ll crack it eventually. Scribbled into my new A5 hardbacked sketchbook with a graphite stick.

Bit of trivia. There is a now unused graphite mine in Cumbria, the Lake District, which used to provide the graphite for cannonball manufacture in the days of Elizabeth the First and pencils have been made there since the 1830s. There’s even a pencil museum in Keswick, a grand day out.

Waiting For Mam

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I spent a happy hour puppy sitting the adorable gallery puppies at Galerie Simpson this afternoon. They are two sweet black Patterdale Terriers and when their Mam popped out, they patiently waited for her – before falling asleep. So cute. And very scribblable! I never miss an opportunity for a scribble. It’s interesting drawing different animals. I’m used to cats, human beings and other monkeys, even the odd bird, but these dogs are so different. Lovely little triangular floppy ears and skinny, skinny legs with big paws.

Galerie Simpson has recently opened on the High Street in Swansea. It’s an area that is undergoing a lot of regeneration and it badly needs it. I lived in this area when I was a small child until most of it was demolished and it’s been very run down for many years, so it’s good to see it on the up at last as part of the new Urban Village, being built by Coastal Housing Group. There’s a terrific exhibition of original prints, Art Lovers, at Galerie Simpson at the moment and it’s on until Easter. Watch out for events coming up at the gallery including Sunday Tea and an arty brunch.

I drew this into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook with a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen, size F and I used the last pages – I finished it! I love finishing a sketchbook, there’s a great sense of achievement and also excitement about starting a new one. Which one will it be? OOOOOHHHH!!!!! I’m such a geek 😀

Eadweard’s Horses

wpid-wp-1425583660083.jpegI rarely work from photographs but I took a series of photos on the beach yesterday and I’m going to use them for sketching for a few days. Drawing directly from life is energising, forces me to focus only on what’s absolutely important in the subject and is good practice but doesn’t give me the opportunity to analyse detail and movement.

For centuries, the way that artists drew and painted running horses was wrong because they moved too fast for artists to see them accurately. Then the pioneering photographer, Eadweard Muybridge did a sequence of photos of a running horse and finally artists were able to see how they ran and changed the way they painted horses.

So these photos are for research into how people and animals move and also to develop a shorthand of marks to represent the sea, which is something I have enormous difficulties with. Hopefully as the days go by, my drawings and mark-making will improve. I’m using graphite sticks into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook.

Not Enough Hours

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Had one of those days where I was out of the house a lot but with no time to draw at all so here’s the last of the life drawings I did last week. I concentrated on the model’s head and upper body and used my Samsung Galaxy Tablet Note 8 with the free Markers app. Sometimes there are not enough hours in the day!

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A Bit Of Columbian

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I was down at Swansea Print Workshop earlier and took some time to scribble the lovely old Columbian printing press. Dating from quite early in Queen Victoria’s reign (1855) this beauty is still in use, even though it’s a little bit wobbly and idiosyncratic. It’s quite complex and I’m right out of my comfort zone, I’m a people person, I draw people. Machinery is really alien so it’s good practice to spend some time trying to get it right. I used a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen size M into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook. I haven’t done any relief (block) printing for quite a while and I’ve been fancying using some of my stash of vinyl blocks – I have a few ideas, I just need to get cutting then I can use this lovely, lovely press again.

Richard The Bird’s Holiday

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Richard, our family parrot, has come to stay for a couple of weeks while his trained monkeys are on holiday. He’s fair game for a scribble, but he’s such a fidget and won’t keep still. I tried him with a Koh I Noor graphite pencil in 8B first, then went back to my comfort zone, a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen size S for the second page of drawings into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook. He’s quite a character and I think it comes out in some of these. He’s beating up a rolled newspaper at the moment, there’s shredded paper all over the floor and the cats won’t go near him!

The Red Castle

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Husb and I celebrated St. David’s Day today with a quick trip up the Valleys to visit Castell Coch, which is Welsh for the Red Castle. It was packed to the rafters with visitors so I didn’t have much time to draw, just a quick sketch of some of the extraordinary carvings above one of the fireplaces. It’s an amazing place, a Victorian folly built onto the foundations of a Medieval castle, designed by William Burges in the Gothic Revival style and bankrolled by the Marquis of Bute, reputedly the richest man in the world at that time.

We also nipped up to the lovely Workers Gallery in Ynyshir to take up some of my artwork. I show a lot of my work there, I am one of the gallery’s permanent artists. It’s a lovely place and it’s great to see a new arts venture open up in such an area of high deprivation.

I drew these sketches into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook with a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen.