OK, A slight glitch Post #2a

A lovely artblog from a fellow printmaker

Jahladik's avatarJHladikVoss57's Blog

And then I get food poisoning and flu?  Bad herring. A Swedish woman should know better than to eat fizzy herring. Up and at it today-somwhat.

Going to add another monoprint etching from the Natural History Series. Alphabetically. Been working this series for over 10 years. Over 100 unique prints. This is going to take us a while! Today’s Concept hint?= Pliny the Elder. Really.

Today’s Print is: N.H.: Acupuncture 12″ x 18″ image. Aquatint on copper. Lino. Soft ground etching. Trace Transfer monotype. Artist designed fonts. For sale, of course. I got hooked on this series when the 2nd one I printed got sold to a museum near Warm Springs, GA. Being a huge FDR worshipper ( thanks again for Lend Lease, Social Security, etc.), I took this as a sign.

NH:Acupuncture

Next info: had a gap in the last 5 years- due to illness. Might take a poll to see if…

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Swansea Caff Culture

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Two days, two cities, two cafes. Husb and I went to the Marina Market in Swansea today, a lovely day, cold and crisp but sunny. There was also a Preloved Fair at the adjacent National Industrial and  Maritime Museum too. It was very busy and felt for the first time that winter might be lifting. Chilled, we popped into the Museum’s excellent cafe and had pots of tea. Lovely. I did some speedy scribbles into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook with Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens, sizes S and F.The chap with his back to me was wearing very wrinkled clothes. Not unironed, just baggy and wrinkly. Then there was a large man by the counter wearing a black and white Swansea F.C. scarf. All scribbled in a couple of minutes. Forces you to focus on what’s really necessary.

Cardiff Caff Culture

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Went up to The ‘Diff today to visit the excellent artspace, g39 just off City Road, a bustling part of the capital. Husb and I had a walk around the area, it was freezing and we found a proper old-fashioned greasy spoon caff where we indulged ourselves with bacon and egg baps and hot, strong black coffee. Lush. It was full of regulars and I scribbled these two chatting over the racing papers. I used the continuous line technique with a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen, size F into my A5 Tate Gallery sketchbook.

Northern Head

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Here’s the other drawing I did at the life drawing group last night at Swansea Print Workshop. I spent about 35 minutes on this portrait using my Samsung Galaxy Tablet Note 8 with the free Markers app.

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I like working with this model, she has a very distinctive face, reminds me of Northern Renaissance paintings. I did a lot of scribbly overlays because the colours in this package are not particularly sophisticated. I think I may start looking for another drawing package to play with soon.

This Evening’s Nude

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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. 😊

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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 😀

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Seconds And Minutes

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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 😀