Catacombs & Xmas

catacombs

Following on from yesterday’s post, here are a couple more sepia drawings I did based on sketches from the St. Paul’s Catacombs in Rabat in Malta. The originals are very slight, quick scribbles. I wanted to try working with the walnut husk ink I made a few weeks ago. I don’t normally work with wet media so it’s good practice for me. I used several different sizes of sable brushes and watered the ink down to make a variety of paler washes. I’m really enjoying this and looking forward to seeing where it takes me.

Tomorrow is Xmas so have a Cool Yule and I hope the day is lovely for you. xxx

Sepia Catacombs

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You never know where and when you’ll get inspiration from. Husb and I visited Malta last week and I carried my sketchbooks, scribbling as we trekked across the lovely island. But it wasn’t until late in our stay that we visited the early Christian catacombs in Rabat. They are extraordinary and I felt a strong urge to draw, but at the same time the atmosphere was so powerful and ……. maybe sacrosanct …… that I felt inhibited and only managed a couple of quick sketches. Husb felt inhibited from taking photographs there too. I don’t know, maybe it seemed disrespectful to act like tourists in a mass grave.

 

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Anyway, a few days after we got back, I was working with my colleagues in the 15 Hundred Lives art collective at the Creative Bubble artspace and I decided to experiment with the walnut husk ink I made a few weeks ago. I used one of those very quick catacomb sketches as a starting point and just started to develop the drawing with a brush and ink, building up layers in the rich sepia and pale washes onto a piece of Fabriano Accademica paper. It’s a new thing for me, I really enjoyed doing it and I’m pleased with what I have so far. I’ll be doing some more experimenting over the next few weeks – there are some ideas fermenting in there! There’s a lot of marks in the piece and that reflects the reality of the catacombs which have very rough, textured surfaces left by the simple chisels they used to hack out the tombs from the soft limestone.

Doggy Scribbles

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This is Cookie the boxer dog. Husb and I visited her this evening. She pestered the life out of me until I got my sketchbook out. Then she fidgeted and did her best to ignore me. Pffft! Drawn into my Tate Gallery sketchbook with Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens sizes F and M.

Maltese Cats Revisited

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Revisiting My Sketchbook

I’ve been looking through some of my old blog posts, there are over 3,000 of them, and it’s hard to remember all the artwork I’ve posted. Here’s one from just after Husb and I came back from a  short holiday in Malta, a gorgeous place, full of cats. I put some watercolour washes onto my drawings at home, I didn’t want the hassle of carrying paints and water around with me. Sparta looks unimpressed. Nothing changes 😀

My Original Post

“Here are a couple of pages from my sketchbook during my recent stay in Malta. It’s a country full of cats, sunning themselves lazily and being waited on by trained humans. The two at the top were hanging out with some pigeons on the city wall in Valletta and the little ginger kept us company as we sipped coffee in a tiny little square in the city.”

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the antique taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these vintage artifacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

Yellow And Red

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Husb and I were sitting on an archaic bench in Valetta a few days ago so I had a scribble. Most of Malta is built from stone quarried on the island. It’s a yellowish limestone, a similar colour to the stone used to build Bath. Right at the bottom of a jumble of tall, skinny, yellow buildings and rooftop television arials stood an old British style red phonebox. I had my watercolour box with me and put a wash over the line drawing.

Drawn with Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens sizes S, F and M and Winsor & Newton watercolours into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook.

Big Boned Gals

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Husb and I spent last week in Malta, a fabulous country with loads of ancient history stuff to enjoy. We visited the excellent National Museum of Archaeology in Valetta and saw these Neolithic statues, found in local ancient stone temples, about 6 thousand years old. They definitely liked the larger lady back in those days. One intriguing feature is that most of the statues were headless – they were discovered with separate heads nearby. It’s possible that the heads were meant to be interchangeable. The flamingo was stuffed and I drew it at the Natural History Museum in Rabat, a traditional old-fashioned museum that was charming.

Drawn with a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen size S, into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook.

Feet And Faffing

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Husb and I spent a week in Malta, which is why I haven’t done much blogging, because Internet access was poor and we were out walking, exploring and drawing every day.

When I am in a new place, it’s difficult to know what to draw. I don’t want to do tourist attractions, nice views and stuff like that because it’s been done before. But I can’t afford to faff around either so I try to find something that catches my eye, to get in some practice even if it’s not particularly inspirational.

I drew this in St. George’s Square in Valetta, sitting down relaxing in the heat. The chap behind the bench was cooling his feet. I scribbled them. Drawn with a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen size F into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook.

The Dolmen

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Husb and I are having a few days in Malta. It’s an amazing place and we can indulge one of our passions, prehistory. We saw this dolmen in the middle of a new luxury hotel and casino complex in the tiny coastal town of Bugibba. It’s over 4,000 years old and it seems odd surrounded by modern buildings. But why not? That’s Husb standing under the capstone so you can see the scale.

Our Internet access is terrible, very hit and miss with the blog and no Facebook, Twitter or Hotmail at all. Never mind, I’m on holiday 😊

Palm Trees And Rain

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Husb and I just arrived in Malta in the Mediterranean today. It’s got palm trees and rain. Just like home. But it’s warmer, fair dos mun. Not much to do on our first night so we’ve found a wifi hotspot in the hotel and I had a quick scribble of one of the locals. Tomorrow we’ll start exploring . There’s a Caravaggio here and ancient ruins.

Another One Of Those Days

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Today has been one of those hectic days with loads of things to do and here I am at the end of the day with no drawing done, so it’ll have to be a quickie of the cat again. Sparta Puss looked up from her sleep just long enough for me to capture her expression with my Samsung Galaxy Tablet Note 8 using the free Markers app.