Je Suis Charlie.

A tribute

Tribute to Charb.

A touching tribute

Russell.'s avatardrawthepublic

In honour of Stéphane Charbonnier, his colleagues, and the police, who lost their lives in the senseless violence that took place in Paris on the 7th of January 2015. It’s difficult to come to terms with the events of that day, perhaps we never will—how can we?

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Je Suis Charlie

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Scribble Cat

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The end of a long, cold, rainy day, busy with loads of admin. I’m sitting half watching a documentary about World War 2 on the telly with Sparta Puss on the stool in front of me. Time for a scribble. I used graphite into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook.

Random Sponging

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I sponged a load of Khadi handmade paper with Indian ink washes and the heavy texture of the paper created some lovely variations in tone and texture. I was stuck indoors today working at the computer so Husb and I went for a walk this evening, in the dark and drizzle. We went down to the beach which was very smudgy and atmospheric in the gentle rain.

When I got back, I looked through the sponged papers until I found some that evoked the atmosphere we’d been walking in. I rubbed some black carbon and white chalk onto parts of it. I normally work directly from life, so it’s a big change for me to work completely intuitively and at random.

Paper Love

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I love paper! I love it, adore it, when I was little I even ate it! I love to possess as many papers as I can afford. I love to try them out with different media and see what they’re capable of. This is handmade Khadi paper. I doused it with an Indian ink wash using a natural sponge and the texture of the paper created some nice stippling.

I have been trying to work out how to draw local landscape, which is very atmospheric. I particularly want to try out ways of capturing twilight and darkness and preparing the paper in this way is showing some promise. I added some highlights and lowlights with chalk and carbon but most of the work had been done.

Bloke In Pub

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Had a quick scribble up the pub tonight. For someone who hardly ever drinks, I’ve been to the same pub twice in 3 days. Tonight we were celebrating the birthday of a dear friend. I didn’t feel like drawing but I force myself to do it, because that’s my job. This bloke was sitting nearby and I thought he had an interesting face 🙂

Saint Elvis And The Scratch

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Husb and I visited some friends in Pembrokeshire today and went walking in the beautiful Presceli countryside. It was chilly but the sunshine was glorious. We passed some fat fluffy horses and I was worried that one of them had caught its tail in a fence. But my country friends explained that it was just scratching its backside on the wire. I’m such a Townie!

The Presceli Mountains are reckoned to be the origin of Elvis Presley’s family name and there is a church dedicated to Saint Elvis in the area. Saint Elvis is believed to have baptised Saint David, the patron saint of Wales.

I drew this with graphite then inked in with a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen size M. I drew into my little Khadi handmade paper sketchbook that I had precoloured with a wet teabag.

Beery, Beardy And Flatulent

 

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Husb and I spent New Year’s Eve dancing the night away at a local nightclub to a groovy Funk disco and a fab Funk band called Disco Panther. Great time but I’m aching all over now. I don’t normally drink alcohol but tried a small bottle of a pale foreign beer with a vaguely South American name. Back in the day, I used to quaff large quantities of real ale, dark bitter stuff that you chewed your way through with names like Old Peculiar’s Rat Entrails and Rancid Tom’s Heavy. Thick, tasty stuff you drank from solid glass tankards. This ‘beer’ I had last night was pale, tasteless and served up in a plastic ‘glass’ with a wedge of lime. A Wedge Of Lime! OUTRAGEOUS!!!! After one ‘glass’ I went onto the fizzy water – it tasted better.

 

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I did some scribbling in the crowd. I was struck by the amount of younger men sporting beards. Nearly everyone under about 35 had facial hair of some sort, even if it was only a tufty bit under the lower lip. And topknots as well. The public smoking ban has been around a few years, but although it’s great not to be breathing in vast amounts of second hand smoke, there’s nothing now to mask the smell of flatulence and in a jam-packed nightclub rocking with hot, sweaty dancers who’ve been knocking back the booze, the flatulence was pretty overpowering. But we still had a great time. Happy New Year everyone 🙂

The Poppies At The Tower

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Back in November, Husb and I went up to London to meet up with friends and do a few exhibitions – the Egon Schiele at the Courtauld and the Grayson Perry at National Portrait Gallery – fabulous. We also trekked across the city to go and see the extraordinary installation Blood Swept Land And Seas Of Red by Paul Cummins and Tom Piper, where almost a million ceramic poppies had been steadily filling the moat around the Tower of London in memory of the British and Commonwealth troops who had died during World War 1. It was tough getting there. It was a very wet, grey November the 5th and London was jam packed with people come to see the Bonfire Night fireworks display down at the River Thames. There had been 4 million visitors to the Tower by then, an unprecedented number and it was a battle to get on the packed Tube and then we were swept along by the throng making their way to see the poppies. But it was worth it. An incredible experience. There were tens of thousands circling the Tower, but little noise. People were silent or muted, quiet and respectful. It wasn’t like ticking off a visit to a tourist attraction, it was a Communion and a moving experience.

I scribbled quickly into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook with some Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens in sepia and added the sea of red with a lipstick. When I came home I put on some washes of my newly made walnut husk sepia ink. My little scribble doesn’t do it justice. I don’t have the drawing skills to show the thousands of people there, just a tiny number immediately in front of me. But the sketch takes me back to the experience in a way that a photograph never could.

It’s New Year’s Eve and I have now blogged just over 1,200 posts, each one showing at least one of my art works. I wish you all a happy and peaceful New Year. Blwyddyn Newydd Dda i chi pawb x