Just back from life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop and here’s a head. The weather has been much colder and stormy the past few days. It was the first time the central heating has been on there since the Spring and our model dozed off. I drew this on my Samsung Galaxy Tablet Note 8, using the free Markers app and working over a dark ground.
This is a cyanotype , an archaic form of photography, that I did a while back. It started out as a digital photograph of a local Swansea nightclub, Sin City. I cropped, turned it black and white and printed it onto an acetate which then became the negative for the cyanotype. I have entered this image into ‘A Book About Death Wales‘, which opens at the Royal Cambrian Academy in North Wales on October the 18th. This image sprung to mind as soon as I considered entering ABAD. Why Sin? I think it must hark back to my early childhood, when I was taken to many Baptist meetings and I vividly remember old red faced preachers (always male) screaming, “You will die and burn in hell, you sinners!!!!” Put me off religion for life.
I tried something new (for me) this evening. I scanned a monochrome life drawing I did some time ago and uploaded it onto my Samsung Galaxy Tablet Note 8. I loaded it into the free Markers app and coloured it in. Great fun.
This is one of my favourite models, an older woman who is very curvaceous, a joy to draw. It’s interesting to portray an elder in this way, challenging stereotypes.
I’ve been back and forth to the local hospital this past week or so; two relatives have needed emergency treatment and medical investigation. There are problems with the NHS and when things go wrong they should be exposed and put right, but on the whole, we’re so privileged to have it and I feel strongly that we have to defend it. My relatives have had excellent care and attention and it hasn’t cost a penny. They’ve had very expensive procedures and have been treated with kindness, dignity and expertise. The prognosis is good.
Here’s a drawing I did this morning in one of the outpatient waiting rooms. It’s drawn across two pages of my tiny spotty sketchbook, size A6, with a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen, size S. Back to the hospital again tomorrow, I’ll try and do another sketch there. It’s interesting to draw a figure in an unfamiliar place.
I carried on doing the paintingy drawingy thing today. I stapled a bit of gessoed canvas to the wall and started rubbing Daler Rowney System 3 acrylic pigments, thinned with screenprinting medium, onto it with my fingers wrapped in rags. The original is a life drawing I did earlier this year. It’s odd using paint. As a printmaker and scribbler I’m used to doing a process in one go. It’s weird for me to have to hang around to let paint dry before I carry on to add a bit more. I’m enjoying the technique, though, it’s free and expressionistic and quite fast.
I rubbed in a cherry pink at stage 4, white at stage 5 and then drew into it with willow charcoal in stage 6. Next step is to consolidate the drawing and develop the colours and details with Winsor & Newton oil bars. I was a bit more sensible today and went for a 5k walk after I did some work on this. Yesterday, I went out earlier and corpsed myself walking 7.5k and was too tired to work on the painting / drawing afterwards.
Today was hectic. So packed I didn’t have time to think. I only managed a tiny little sketch, a few fleeting minutes in a cafe. But any drawing is good. The important thing is to do it every day. In my opinion. I used a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen into my A5 leatherbound Steampunk sketchbook. Which is cool.
One of the reasons I didn’t have much time to draw today is because Husb and I went for a stiff 7.5k walk along the Swansea Bay seafront. It’s so beautiful and the weather was glorious after last night’s storm. Autumn has been fabulous so far. I’m lucky to live here. Did it in an hour and a half, bit slow, need to speed up.
Today I had an urge to use paint. I’m not a painter. I don’t get paint but I really fancied using some earlier. So I stapled a bit of gesso-ed canvas to the wall and rubbed it all over with a yellow ochre acrylic pigment, put on with rags. It dried pretty quickly so I blocked in some reddish colour and once that was dry, rubbed on some green. I don’t like brushes.I don’t know if it’s a painting or a drawing. I’ll be putting in details with oil bars, which is definitely a drawing medium.
I did the life drawing above about a year ago, using oil pastels into a khadi paper book, opened up to use the double spread and this is what I’m using for reference.
I’ll carry on with it tomorrow and see what happens.
Here’s the ‘ghost’ of the monotype I completed yesterday. It’s made by putting a second piece of paper on the plate and putting it through the press again to pick up what’s left of the ink. The ethereal image is very impressionistic, almost pointillist as the pigment fragments on the second pressing. I used Caligo oil based washable litho / relief inks in Process Yellow, Magenta and Cyan plus Extender onto BFK Rives 250gsm paper. It’s a gorgeous one with a deckle edge, very fine, smooth surface. It’s the best for this technique.
Just back from an evening Open Access session at Swansea Print Workshop where I did the third in a series of impressionistic monotype landscapes based on the residency I did in Pakistan earlier this year. This is one of a sequence I drew in a thunderstorm.
Had a tough day. Sparta Puss the evil-kitty-from-hell, terrorised me by bringing a live rodent into the house. It was a relief to get away to do some printmaking. And now I’m tired.
Here’s what I’ll be getting up to in October. As well as blogging, of course 😀
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