I snuck up on Husb tonight and scribbled him as he watched TV. Sometimes I think I might be a stalker! Drawn with Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens sizes S and F into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook.
The Priestland Debate – a Hitler parody!
Hilarious short film about the state of Welsh rugby!!!
Cwtch And Pajamas
It’s cold, it’s been a long week and I’m cwtched in my pajamas on my comfy chair with Sparta Puss at my feet. I’m not going anywhere so I did a scribble of the cat. She’s looking like a bit of a bruiser at the moment, with her thick winter coat and winter weight gain. Quite chubby. She’s sleeping with her paws all cwtched together. She’s very cute when she’s asleep.
I drew with Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens sizes S and F into my A6 Tate sketchbook.
High Tea on High Street
Husb and I popped into the new Galerie Simpson on the High Street earlier today, to partake of High Tea in the one-day-only Tweeting Bird cafe organised by Iris, who also did a lot of the baking. We took tea from a golden tea pot, munched on salmon and cucumber sandwiches and nibbled a variety of delicious home-made cakes including bara brith, scones with jam and cream, iced chocolate cake and a classic Victoria Sandwich.
Never one to miss the opportunity for a quick scribble, I sketched a few of the people in the lovingly restored interior of this old building which was for many years a bespoke corsetry shop called Madame Foners. One of the girls I drew had her arms grasped firmly behind her back in a way that only the young can manage, my ageing bones would snap if I tried to manouver them into that position.
I used some graphite sticks I bought at The Secession in Vienna earlier this year (ooh get me!) in black, grey and gold into my A6 Tate gallery sketchbook.
Kate And Sidney Up The Rhondda
At last today, the official opening of the new Workers Gallery in Ynyshir up the Rhondda Valley. The local council is closing loads of facilities due to austerity cutbacks and they shut down the little library in the town, but artists Gayle Rogers and Chris Williams took out the lease on it and with a little help from their friends have opened this fab new artspace in a very deprived area. They kindly invited me to become a gallery artist. This means that I get a square metre of wallspace for the year and I can display what I want. I’ve put together a notice board of the process of doing an etching along with some of my prints. I wrote about it a few days ago. It includes the info sheet above on how to ink up and print from an etching plate.
The gallery is operating a Worker’s Mate membership scheme where supporters who join as a member get an introductory free gift set and a snazzy discount card, as well as members-only discounts throughout the year, invitations to special events and talks, and freebies. Membership helps keep the gallery & art library free for all and supports the arts. Memberships starts from £20 per year and individual, family & friends and group memberships are available. Here’s the gallery’s Facebook page where you can find out more about The Workers.
By the way, Ynyshir means Long Island in Welsh. And I had the best pie and chips ever up The Rhondda earlier this evening. Kate and Sidney pie as my Nana used to call it (steak and kidney). From an Italian chip shop in Ferndale. Yum!
A Model Of Distinction
Just back from life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop. I used my Samsung Galaxy Tablet Note 8 with the free Markers app for this 45 minute pose. I really enjoy working with this model. She has a very distinctive face.
The Fleecy Igloo
Greetings bald apes. I, Sparta Puss, have control of the pooter box again. The she monkey came back from hunting the other day with a fleecy igloo. She was very pleased with herself, I don’t know why. I’d have been impressed if it was a rat. She says it’s for me and Ming the Merciless to sleep in. Like we’re going to do what she wants?!
What an idiot. Ming has stormed off into another room to sleep on a newspaper and I am taunting her by settling down right next to it. That’ll teach the stupid ape. Next time she goes out hunting I expect some smoked salmon, not a poxy fleecy igloo.
Blue Birds
I carried on with my cyanotype experiments. I have always used an ultraviolet unit to expose them in the past, which takes about 6 minutes. I wanted to see if I could expose them with natural light so I sandwiched two negatives between pieces of chemically treated paper and a sheet of glass and left them for 1 hour 45 minutes in a window in the afternoon sun. I’ve been told that it’s quicker in summer, around an hour.
I developed them in cold water in the sink and I’m quite pleased with the results. The original images were small sketchbook drawings I did of pigeons some years ago. I scanned them and using Adobe Photoshop, reversed the image horizontally, inverted it into a negative and resized.
A Metre Squared
There’s a new gallery opening in Ynyshir in the Rhondda Valley in South Wales. It’s being run by artists Gayle Rogers and Chris Williams and they’ve put together a group of artists to become gallery artists. Each of us has a metre squared of wall space and that’s our own, permanently. I’ve made a metre squared notice board and constructed a sequence showing the development of a photopolymer intaglio plate from original drawing to finished editioned print. I thought it might be more interesting for people to see than if I just used the space to hang a small group of framed pieces.
The Workers opens officially next Friday, the 21st of November from 10 – 5. The Workers is at The Old Library, 9 Ynyshir Road CF39 0EN. There is a new exhibition of 2 and 3D work by Gale and Chris, the gallery artists metres squared, Gayle’s studio and a small gallery shop full of juicy merchandise.
We’ll Be Back!
I finished my big drawing today at Creative Bubble artspace in the city centre. The art collective I’m in, 15 Hundred Lives, has been using the venue for two days a month for over a year now, this was our 14th event. The three of us, collagist Sylvie Evans, painter Graham Parker and me, use the space to work and develop together as a group and also to let the public come in and see what it is that artists do during the creative process.
We also ask other artists to come in and work with us each month, to build relationships within the local arts community and so the public can see what a wide diversity of arts there is in Swansea. It’s a pretty groovy place. This month the talented painter David Hughes-Jones was our guest and other artists popped in with their work as well, Ann Lucas with her gorgeous needle-felted 3D forms and Melanie Ezra with her latest collage creation.
This will be the very last event at Creative Bubble. It has been leased by the University of Wales Trinity St. Davids (aka the art college) and the lease ends now! BUT they’ve taken out a lease on a bigger building right across the street which opens next month. And we’ll be back!
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