Back to some focussed wildlife studies. More hares. I like this one. It’s in proportion. It’s a good hare. Drawn with Derwent pencils, B and 3B into an A6 sketchbook.
Vampire Elvis
Hilarious spoof blog from the witty pen of Notsogreatdictator Smith. Elvis moves to Wales to fight crime.
Public Pop Ups
The 15 Hundred Lives art collective that I’m a member of has been doing these 2-day events monthly in Swansea since the summer, partly to get the benfits of working in a large space with other artists. But also to open up the process to the public.
We are committed to democratising art and getting art out of ‘white cubes’ and into public places. We publicise these events extensively via Facebook and through the local press, who really like our approach to public involvement. The venue, Creative Bubble, is building a reputation as a public artspace.
Each month each event brings in people of all ages, professional and hobby artists along with members of the public who are interested and want to see what’s going on.
We also have a table stocked with basic drawing and painting materials and people can join in and paint, draw, collage onto paper plates which we then display on the walls as a public pop-up gallery.
Some artists want an opportunity to put their work-in-progress up and talk to people about it, getting valuable feedback, like Melanie Ezra above.
And we get new experiences too. Here I am being painted by a toddler.
And here’s a little artist proudly showing his collage and a tiny critic showing his appreciation.
The Collective
Isolation can be good for an artist, giving the opportunity for reflection and concentration, but it can also be …. well …. isolating. I’m a member of a couple of artist collectives and I find this gives me the best of both worlds, because I can share ideas and workload with others when I need to.
The 15 Hundred Lives collective has a regular gig at Swansea’s Creative Bubble for 2 days each month. It started because we wanted to have some space to work together occasionally and also to work on things that might be too big for our studios. But, as a group committed to democratising art, we also liked the idea of throwing the door open so that the public could come in and see what we do and appreciate the artistic process. And we also wanted to give other artists the chance to work occasionally as part of a group and have access to a great space.
So here we are. We’ve just finished our 6th session over 6 months and it looks like we might be able to continue throughout the year. Lots of people wander in to look around and chat to us and artists are keen to come in and use the wall space. Graham Parker and this month’s guest artist, Patricia McKenna-Jones are in the top picture; Graham working on an abstract painting and Patricia on a drawn collage composed of drawings she’s made onto newspaper from her sketchbook studies. Then there’s Sylvie Evans, using the window space to construct a collage from left-over Xmas materials and I’m in the third picture working directly onto newspapers.
And here’s our guest artist from last month, Melanie Ezra, who popped in to use some spare wall to put up her work in progress so she could see what it looks like in a large gallery space. She also too the opportunity to chat to the public and other artists about the piece to get their opinions.
Wild Scribbles
Day 2 at Creative Bubble and I carried on drawing large-scale studies of British wildlife for something I’m planning to do in coming weeks. Alongside the two hares I did yesterday I scribbled a hedgehog and badger.
My drawing style changed slightly with each animal; quite jerky with the hares, spiky on the hedgehog and quite blocky on the large, ponderous badger. I guess that reflects the way the animals look but I wasn’t expecting such a difference in the way I did my drawing strokes – it just happened.
I also like drawing onto newspaper. The overall piece is about 10 feet long and maybe five feet high and I’ve enjoyed working on such a huge scale after spending several days drawing hares into a tiny sketchbook and into a Samsung Galaxy Tablet. It’s much more physical and my shoulders and neck are aching now. Back to a tiny sketchbook tomorrow, I think.
The art collective I’m a part of, 15 Hundred Lives, will be doing these 2-day monthly events regularly throughout the year. If you’re around in Swansea, come and check us out or keep tabs on us through our Facebook group or website. Those hares look like they’re disco dancing 😀
Hare Today
*Groan*. Another hare pun 🙂 . Today I was at the Creative Bubble artspace in the city centre, with my colleagues Sylvie Evans and Graham Parker from the 15 Hundred Lives art collective, running another of our monthly public art events. We were joined by guest artist Patricia McKenna-Jones.
Using the theme ‘Recycle’ we reused materials to create new artworks from scratch. I stuck loads of newspaper sheets together on the wall and practiced wildlife drawings with charcoal, chalk, carbon and oil pastels.
I drew boxing hares today. They throw some amazing shapes when they’re fighting. Apparently it’s the female whacking the male to fend off unwanted amorous attention in Springime.
We’re back again tomorrow, so if you’re in the area, please call in to Creative Bubble to have a chat, or maybe join in and do a bit of artwork. Today is Art’s Birthday and Husb and I are off out now in a minute to some of the arty birthday celebrations.
Hare Raising
hmmmm how many puns about hares can I get away with? 🙂 I’m still practicing drawing hares, alternating between the Samsung Galaxy Tablet and pencils. Another day or two and I’ll move onto another animal.
I visited the old Swansea Museum today. They have an exhibition on Alfred Wallace with some taxidermy including foxes and a badger, so I’ll take myself down there to draw from them, instead of photos, over the weekend.
Harivariation
Practice makes perfect. So I’ve been drawing and redrawing the little hare from the digital drawing I did yesterday. I’m doing these in Reeves pencils, B and 3B into my new little spotty sketchbook. It’s size A6 and my chum and fellow blogger, Melanie Ezra, brought it back from New York City for me. Here it is.
It’s cute. There’s a reason I’m doing all these practice sketches. There’ll be lots more to come over the next few days………
Here’s A Hare
I’ll be working on British wild animals for a while; I’m not letting on why just yet,but expect more hares,some hedgehogs, badgers, foxes,red squirrels and maybe a Scottish lynx over the next couple of weeks. I’ll also be using my Samsung Galaxy Tablet to draw them,so I’ll be getting plenty of practice doing digital drawing.
Frustration!
Having a play with my Samsung Galaxy Tablet this evening, sketching from photos. I’m working in the free Magic Marker app and I quite like how I’m getting on with it. I don’t like the ‘Gallery’ on the Tablet though. The drawings get saved to the ‘Gallery’ but the edit function is extremely temperamental and it wouldn’t let me rotate this drawing, which was originally on its end. Try as I might, the ‘Rotate’ function kept refusing to work. So I emailed it to myself but then it wouldn’t open in anything! So Husb had a go for ages and just as he was about to throw the computer across the room, the darn thing opened up in Adobe Photoshop. Which is what we tried to do first!!!! I hate computers. Frustration doesn’t come into it!
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