Just back from life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop with a new nude study. I used my Samsung Galaxy Tablet Note 8 with the free Markers app. It’s late, I am off to bed. 😊
What Am I Up To In February?
Here’s what I’m up to this month, in my ‘What Am I Up To‘ section on my blog. Lots of arty shenanigans. Click on the link to see more 😀
Seconds And Minutes
Husb and I are just back from seeing the marvellous film ‘Set Fire To The Stars‘ at the Taliesin Arts Centre, followed by a Q&A session from one of the film’s leads, Celyn Jones. A great night out. I did some very speedy sketches in the bar before we went in. These were done in seconds. Literally seconds. When you’re drawing at that speed you are forced to focus on the essence of what you’re drawing, the absolute basic details to get an image.
After the film, during the Q&A session, I was able to spend more time drawing individual faces, up to about 10 minutes. That gave me time to get the basics down and then build up layers of detail. I used my full set of Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens in sepia, sizes S, F, M and B into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook. The Q&A session was a fascinating insight into the making of a low budget independent film and Celyn Jones entertained us with stories from the set, which was almost all filmed in and around Swansea. The film also stars Elijah Wood playing John Brinnin to Celyn’s Dylan Thomas.
Another Night, Another Cat
Another quick scribble at the end of the day: another cat. It’s just so easy when I’m slumped on a chair, panicking because I haven’t done a drawing for my blog yet. She’s slumped on the chair too. I get annoyed with myself because I haven’t produced a great masterpiece, or misstresspiece, but the important thing really is to get the sketchbook out and do a drawing each day. It’s all practice and I get better at sketching cats if nothing else.
Drawn with graphite sticks in dark grey and goldy colour into my Tate Gallery sketchbook.
Up Above Looking Down.
Just another daily drawing of Husb, at his computer. I stood on a stool and looked down on him. Interesting perspective and foreshortening. I drew into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook with a graphite stick, very quickly, certainly less than 10 minutes. And now off to the pub quiz.
Wookey Hole
I was given a stack of vintage art papers by a kind benefactor a while back and I am gradually using them for drawing and printmaking. Today’s daily drawing was done on a beautiful piece of W.S.H. & Co British Handmade Paper, made at the Wookey Hole paper mill near Cheddar in Somerset in the West Country. Wookey Hole is probably more famous for its wonderful ancient caves, the legend of the Witch and its cave-aged Cheddar cheese, but in amongst all of this is a paper mill that has been operating over 400 years, since at least 1610. The paper is beautifully textured with deckle edges, a large watermark and a slightly bluish tint.
I had used this sheet of paper to do a bit of opportunistic marbling. A fellow artist had some left over black oil paint mixed with turps and chucked it into a bowl of water with washing up liquid and the surface went all marbly. So I grabbed a few sheets of paper and laid them on top and got some lovely marbled effects. I scribbled this while Husb was Skyping a relative this evening, using compressed charcoal and black and white conte crayons. It took about 10 minutes. It is fairly accurate but makes him look much older than he is.
I like to spend my time fondling beautiful papers and doing research and reading about them. I am such a geek 😀
The Cook In
Such a busy day, I only had time for a few quick kitty scribbles this evening as Sparta Puss dozed at my feet. After shopping this morning at the excellent Uplands Market, Husb and I did a massive cook-in, making split pea and ham soup, tomato and vegetable soup, spelt and seeded bread, Seville orange and brandy marmalade and Cawl (a traditional Welsh lamb and vegetable stew). We made huge quantities to stock up the freezer and the preserves shelf in the pantry. And now I’m off to bed. Goodnight 😀
Renaissance Head
Here’s the digital drawing I did last night at Swansea Print Workshop. I enjoy drawing this model’s face very much, it has a Renaissance aspect to it.
I used my Samsung Galaxy Tablet Note 8 with the free Markers app. I put a coloured ground on first, then sketched lightly in a fine pen tool to get the basic composition. The slideshow shows the development of the drawing.
The Irrepressible Artist
Husb and I went to an artist talk put on by the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery this evening. It was an interview with the gallery’s artist-in-residence, Joan Jones. It was fascinating listening to the irrepressible Joan talk about other artists, writers and musicians that had been so inspiring and influential, including Gertrude Stein, the Manic Street Preachers and Dolly Parton amongst others. Joan’s work is about turning embodied queer experience – often painful – into narratives or ‘folk stories’ through a variety of mediums, including song, live performance and zine distribution.
I drew Joan with Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens, the full set of S, M, F and B, in sepia into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook. And now I’m off to life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop. No peace for the wicked!
Northern Soul
Husb and I went to the Taliesin cinema this evening to see Northern Soul, a great film with a fantastic soundtrack. Set in the 1970s, it reminded us how grubby and ugly Britain was back then, at least in the working class areas. Damn good fun though. Would love to be able to dance like that again, but all that dancing and partying in my youth has caught up with me 😀
Had a juice in the bar and did a quick scribble of people’s heads. Speed drawing forces you to just capture the main details and is really good practice. I used a mid-grey graphite stick into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook.
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