Frida Blue

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And the last of the silkscreens of women artists that I am working on, the iconic Frida Kahlo. This is the first stage, after drawing the image gently onto the fabric with a soft pencil, I have painted the image with Speedball Diazo Drawing Fluid. Once it’s dry, the next stage will be to squeegee the Filler Liquid across it to form the stencil. This series of 8 women artists will be launched at the London Art car Boot Fair next Sunday, June the 14th. It’s over in the East End, in Brick Lane, if anyone’s in London on the day 😀

For The Love Of Paper

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I’m cracking on with my silkscreens of women artists, completing another 2 editions today,  Hannah Höch, a Berlin Dadaist and pioneer of collage and photomontage and Gabriele Münter, a German Expressionist painter. I’m printing in editions of 25 and hope to complete eight editions to take to the London Art Car Boot Fair on June the 14th. These are numbers 4 and 5 of the final 8.

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I’m using Speedball Diazo Drawing Fluid to paint the image onto the screens and completing the stencil with their liquid filler. I have been using Daler Rowney System 3 acrylic process black pigment mixed with Screen Printing Medium in a ration of one third to two thirds, pigment to medium. I am printing on some beautiful handmade vintage paper by W.H. Saunders, a British mill that unfortunately no longer exists. It’s a medium weight, slightly textured creamy deckle-edged paper. Ooooh I love paper. I love it!

Lady In Blue

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Head down working on silkscreen editions again today. I started preparing number 7 out of 8, Jeanne Hébuterne, early 20th century French artist who died tragically at the age of 22. I drew the image onto the fabric with an HB pencil and then filled in the areas that will print black with Speedball Diazo Drawing Fluid. Tomorrow I’ll apply the filler. I’m making these editions of screenprints to take to the London Art Car Boot Fair, on June the 14th. It’s an example of how drawing underpins my artistic practice. I try to draw every day in my sketchbook; it’s basic practice, like a musician doing their scales or chords. But drawing is more than practice, it’s vital to the process of developing my prints as well.

Opening Friday 5 June

A lovely exhibition of printmaking opens tonight at Swansea Print Workshop

drawntoprint's avatar15 Years, people and printmaking

Kindly Avert Your Gaze

Jane Jones The Red Coat monopprintA pop-up exhibition by Swansea-based artist Jane Jones

The exhibition opens with a Private View on Friday 5 June from 6.30 to 8 pm and continues on Saturday and Sunday 6 and 7 June from 11 am to 4 pm

ALL WELCOME | FREE

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A Renaissance Video

Husb has been turning my digital drawings into short videos, showing how the sketches develop from nothing to completion. I’ve been drawing on a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 using a free Markers app and Husb has used Adobe Premiere Pro to edit them. This is one I did from a drawing by Raphael. Sometimes it’s useful to to make some studies from great artists. It’s good practice and aspirational.

Artist And Bird

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I’m cracking on with the series of screenprints I’m doing on dead women artists. This is my edition (of 25) featuring Paula Modersohn-Becker. In the next week I’ll complete editions on another 5 artists, eight in all. I’ll be taking them to sell at the London Art Car Boot Fair the weekend after next. So I’d better get my skates on! That’s Richard The Bird in the background.

Folk Heads

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Husb and I spent a pleasant couple of hours at the Riverside Folk Club in Loughor last night and it was a good opportunity for a scribble. Folk musicians tend to move around less than heavy metal bands, no headbanging, so I had a bit more time to draw them. I did a couple of quicker sketches at first, trying to include the guitars but they didn’t work out too well. I need to get someone to pose for a longer time with a guitar, or several poses, to get used to drawing an instrument from different angles. I switched to sketching heads and it was better.

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I drew into my A4 hardbacked sketchbook that I’d prepared by sticking ripped pieces of brown wrapping paper onto pages with a Pritt stick. I used black graphite, a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen, size M, and white conte crayon. The music was good too and I’m not a folkie type, more of a metal head. Enjoyed it though.

Back From The Folk Club

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Just back from the Riverside Folk night at Loughor Boat Club where I had a few scribbles. This is one of them. More tomorrow, it’s late and I am off to bed now in a minute. Good night zzzzzzzzz 😪

The Bird Is Back!

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Richard The Bird has come back for a holiday. His trained monkeys are off on their travels again so he’s having a vacation with us and the kittehs. He has already established who’s boss and we hairless apes are definitely bottom of the pecking order. He’s just taken a bath in his waterbowl and pelted me with some of his nuts and a piece of mango. Ming the Merciless is nonplussed, nothing distracts her from the boiler and the food bowl. Sparta Puss is prowling around looking for a way to get into his cage, but it’s built like Fort Knox. So I’m expecting some animal mayhem over the next few weeks.

I managed a couple of quick scribbles with graphite into my A5 hardbacked sketchbook. It’s a bit disconcerting because most animals (except cats) don’t like being stared at, which is necessary for drawing them. But this one stares straight back at me!

Live To Draw Again!

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This is a 10 minute sketch of fellow artist Chris Harrendence who is one of the 4 members of The Plebeian Scribblers and we spent a day last weekend doing ‘live’ drawing in Fringe Arts Bath. We had a set amount of time split into 10-minute slots. Once 10 minutes was up, we changed position and went onto another 10-minute drawing. We did 10 drawings each, quite a body of work for one day. It was boiling hot and very tiring but worth it. We had loads of people stopping and looking at what we were doing, we’re all very committed to taking art out of white cubes and into public spaces. The other Plebeian Scribblers are Patricia McKenna-Jones and Melvyn Williams.

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I used a selection of graphite sticks and Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens into an A4 hardbound Daler Rowney sketchbook. It’s a challenge to work in such a formal way, normally I cast around and choose what I want to draw carefully, but this time we were given a specific street to work in and we had choreographed our positions so we had to draw whatever was in front of us during each 10 minute stint. Sometimes I was just looking at a shop window full of advertising and merchandise, so I did a couple of drawings of reflections and some of adverts, not normally what I’d choose to do. We all thought it was worthwhile though so The Plebeian Scribblers might live to draw again!