Richard The Bird’s Holiday

Richard the bird

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.

 

Top Model

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And another life drawing from this week’s session – I was on a roll! I sat up on the plans chest for this one, looking from above and from a fairly acute angle to my left. The model was sitting on a small chair and his right foot was bent in a very awkward way, but it didn’t seem to bother him, he kept at it for an hour. Models are amazing, they’re not given the recognition they deserve IMHO.

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I used a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and a free Markers app.

Some Quick Ones

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Here are a couple more drawings I did at life drawing group at Swansea Print Workshop last night. These are quick ones. I sat on the plans chest to draw the first one, so I was looking down on the model from above and to one side. I measured the left leg loads of times because it looked so odd when I drew it, but it’s in the right place, shows how weird foreshortening can be.

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These ones are the three 5 minute poses we do at the start of the session. I overlaid them in different colours because ….. well I think it’s pretty. I used my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 with a free Markers app.

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Prostrate Man

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Just back from life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop. I did a lot of drawings tonight. Here’s one of them, with one of our male models, a floor pose. I really like to take a drawing position above the model to draw from that angle.

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I used my Samsung Galaxy Tablet Note 8 with a free Markers app, saving several times so I can put them in a slideshow to show its development.

Drawing Darkly

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I spent some time in my studio today, starting a ‘manier noir’ style drawing. It’s a type of reductive drawing, working from black to white, rubbing away areas of charcoal to reveal the highlights. It’s the very first of a substantial body of drawings and original prints I have planned.

I prepared Fabriano Accademica paper with gesso and when it dried, I rubbed it evenly all over with compressed charcoal, using my hand to get a smooth black surface. I ‘draw’ into the charcoal with steel wool and very fine sandpaper. This technique results in a subtle but dramatic chiaroscuro.

Manier noir is an alternative name for the printmaking technique mezzotint, where an engraved metal plate has the highlights smoothed away with a steel burnisher.

Some wood I found, a print I made, and some images from Ye Olde Testament

I had to share this wonderful blogpost from Cardiff printmaker, John Abell, showing his latest linocuts

 

Some wood I found, a print I made, and some images from Ye Olde Testament.

Way Too Cute!

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I took my teenage niece with me to do a spot of puppy-sitting yesterday and I also took a drawing board, some beautiful vintage paper – Saunders from the Wooky Hole paper mill in Somerset – and charcoal, compressed and willow. I intended to do some portrait drawing of my niece, but I reckoned without the puppies! Way, way too cute and irresistible to a teenager apparently.

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I don’t know what she heard when I said,  “Keep still so I can draw you”. I think she heard, “Just roll around on the floor with the puppies then and don’t worry about keeping still so I can draw you!!!!!!!” So I did my best, but the little critters were a major distraction and I had to catch impressions of her as she cuddled the little tinkers. Ah well.

Crowd Control

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Standing in a queue is a good opportunity to do some crowd sketching. I like to draw individuals because, to be honest, it’s easier. But I shouldn’t stay in my comfort zone so I did these two crowd sketches when I was standing in a queue yesterday. Drawing in a crowd forces you to bring proportion and perspective into the composition. I drew with a graphic stick into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook.

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Spotted!

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Husb and I were up in Cardiff today in a queue for 3 hours. How very British. I used the time to draw. I started out using a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen, size M, into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook, but I didn’t like the results I was getting, too rigid, so I switched to a stick of graphite and got into my stride.

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He eventually spotted me!