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 🙂
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.
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.
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 🙂
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
So I was only out for about 40 minutes first thing and I didn’t have time to scribble anything and I’ve been working on the computer all day because it isn’t all about creating arty stuff, I wish it was and I’m fed up scribbling my feet, Husb and the cats so here’s one from the archives, from a sketchbook about 7 years ago. I was going through a phase of dividing up my page into cartoon boxes and drawing the model in different poses in each box, cropping the figure to fit. I worked directly onto the paper in Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen, as usual. I’ve never drawn in pencil first and inked over – straight in at the deep end, that’s me. This is an elder model who has many tattoos, of lizards, insects and carnivorous plants all over her body. As you do. And now, back to the computer stuff. 😦
Swansea Beach was pretty busy today with loads of walkers and dogs. The weather was fantastic, very bright and sunny with a crisp chill. There was a small group of people who seemed to be having a slow dance. It wasn’t slow enough to scribble so I took a photo and did a sketch from that, in graphite into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook.
A totally lazy day today. It’s Sunday, it’s Xmas time and Husb, the cats and I did absolutely nothing all day. Except a spot of cooking, watching mindless telly and Facebooking. Here’s a quickie of Husb doing nothing.
Drawn with a Samsung Galaxy Tablet Note 8 using the free Markers app in about 10 minutes.
It’s a bit of a tradition at this time of year to visit our dead loved ones in cemeteries and memorial gardens. I went with Husb and Mam-in-Law to visit Dad-in-Law’s memorial stone in our local cemetery. It’s a lovely place, green with lots of trees and the noonday winter sun was low in the sky and cast long shadows across the bright grass.
When time is short, all you can do is get the main features of the landscape down, no time for lots of detail. I noticed that most of the gravestones were tilted, I don’t know why. Drawn with Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens sizes S, F and M into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook.
Apart from a visit to some delightful relatives, today’s been a lazy day. Yesterday was such lovely weather that Husb and I walked about 8 kilometres along the seafront in Swansea. Today we woke up to torrential rain and high winds so now this evening we’re cwtched at home behind tightly drawn curtains watching television. As lazy as Sparta Puss. Here she is, sleeping through Boxing Day tv.
Drawn with a Samsung Galaxy Tablet Note 8 using the free Markers app.
One of Husb’s drawings of the little furry tyrant. Season’s Greetings – Cyfarchion y Tymor xxxxxxx
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