We spent a couple of hours foraging for whinberries on the Brecon Beacons earlier today. Whinberries are a type of blueberry or bilberry and the picking season is very short. I haven’t been out picking them for years and I can’t remember how I cooked them before.
Traditionally, they’re baked in a pie. I’ll sleep on it and make something nice for tea tomorrow. I stopped picking for a few minutes to scribble Husb in my tiny spotty sketchbook with a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen size S.
Husb and I spent a happy few hours at Swansea Community Farm today. There was a hog roast, demonstrations of spinning and felt making, live bands, and animals. The critters live pretty free lives and many were wandering around. These sweet spotty piglets were dozing in a shady spot out of the dazzling sunshine. They piled up on top of each other on a comfy bed of hay.
They were nice and still while I drew them on my Samsung Galaxy Tablet Note 8 with a free Markers app. The ducks, however, would not stay still. I did my best but they’re all wonky.
Just back from life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop. We had the ‘Egon Shiele’ model again. She’s great to draw. This was a one hour pose and a lot of it was spent drawing the hands. I used my Samsung Galaxy Tablet Note 8 with the free Markers app.
I saved the drawing regularly to make a slideshow of the development of the drawing.
Feeling a bit poorly today, might have caught the family stomach bug so I haven’t done any drawings so here’s one I did earlier, a couple of weeks ago when Husb and I were in Vienna. We were exploring and stopped to rest a while under a scented tree, a tilia I think, in a small square around an ancient church. I had a quick scribble into my A6 spotty sketchbook with a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen size S. The church has flying buttresses. I’m a sucker for flying buttresses.
Husb and I went on a family visit this evening and I got my Samsung Galaxy Tablet Note 8 out to scribble the dog, Attila the Hunny. Of course, as soon as I started drawing her, she started fidgeting and kept turning her back on me. If she’d been a cat, she’d have posed, turning her best side to me and doing cute. I used the free Markers app.
Did some more sketch jamming inspired by the pastel drawings I did during my artist residency at the Zaira Zaka studio in Pakistan in April. The originals were quick sketches I made during a journey between Lahore and Islamabad and were drawn into a white handmade Khadi sketchbook, around 15cms square and quite textured. I’ve tried to capture the impressions using the same pastels, Daler Rowney artist’s soft pastels, but onto a smooth black Daler Rowney Ebony sketchbook. The images are a little larger, around 17 cms square.
I’m moving away from reality now and into abstraction, which is nice because I rarely do that. I’m enjoying making marks for the sake of it, rather than to represent something specific. It’s unusual for me not to work directly from life but I’m really getting into it. I always found it inhibiting in the past, but jamming is loosening me up.
Husb and I went up Mynydd Betws (Betws Mountain) today to get our regular supply of farmyard manure for the allotment. We had young nephew with us so we stopped a while to look at the gorgeous view and the sheep and lambs. There are a lot of black faced sheep up there.
I had a quick scribble into my little A6 spotty sketchbook with a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen size S. The landscape is so enormous it’s hard to know where to start and how to approach it, but the main thing is to focus on making marks and not try to get in too much detail. I think of van Gogh’s landscape drawings when I’m doing them.
Here’s a couple of pages from my tiny A6 spotty sketchbook. Husb and I were having a cool drink at the rather lovely cafe in Cwmdonkin Park. It’s right by the tennis courts so I did a bit of action scribbling. It’s good practice as I have to focus on what’s fundamental to the figures rather than trying to capture details. It was challenging to draw the racquets as they form a strange extension to the arms.
Drawn with a Faber Castell Pitt pen size S.
I worked with a new model at life drawing this week. She is great and looks like she could have modelled for Egon Shiele a hundred years ago. It takes a while to get used to a new model. I usually have to try out different techniques.
I drew this with the Markers app on my Samsung Galaxy Tablet Note 8, saving frequently to build up a slideshow of the development of the drawing.
Went to the beach earlier today to take part in the Fresh West ‘Make Your Mark ‘ public art event. I did some mark making stuff in the sand but unfortunately, after weeks of wonderful sunshine, the weather turned and it was cold and wet. Miserable.
But a scribbler must scribble so I did some action drawings of people working in the sand. There were lots of interesting shapes but they moved fast so I had to focus on the minimum amount of information to get onto the page. I used a Faber Castell Pitt pen into my little A6 sketchbook.
scribblah 