Just a quickie, just got back from life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop and it’s late – and cold. I did some 5 minute poses, all on one sheet, in graphite and conte crayon.
And I also did a one=hour pose onto a canvas sheet, gessoed in white and primed with rhodamine red litho/relief ink which I squeegeed on randomly. I drew in white and black conte crayon. Difficult pose, took an age.
Reblogging this hilarious spoof about superheroes in Wales and their battle against bureaucracy…….
Swansea Bay’s bid to be the UK City of Culture in 2017, ‘Cwtch The Bid’, wasn’t successful; the result was announced this morning and Hull’s the winner – congratulations to Hull. So tonight’s event back in Swansea was more of a wake than a celebration, but it was very upbeat. One of the nice things about Cwtch The Bid was the amount of artists, musicians, writers, performers who did lots of little bits to feed information and ideas into the bid. It was great to see so many people putting aside their differences and getting stuck in and who still want to be involved in moving things forward in Swansea.
This evening’s celebration was totally focussed on how to keep the ball rolling. With so many people involved from grass roots organisations and such a terrific response from the public, it should be possible to ‘Cwtch The Potential’ and carry on. Dylan Thomas didn’t do us any favours when he labelled Swansea “the graveyard of ambition”. It’s time to shake off that legacy and become ‘the powerhouse of ambition’.
I sat in a corner, as I normally do at gatherings of more than half dozen people, and I sketched the crowd in my clothbound A5 sketchbook, prepared with ripped brown parcel paper stuch in with Pritt stick glue, using Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens, sizes S, F and M. I’ve learned from hard experience not to get too precious about drawing crowds because people move around so much. Don’t be afraid to overlay figures as people move into view and obscure those behind. The zebra head on the left is not real, it’s a wacky model.
BTW, ‘cwtch’ is a Welsh word meaning to hug and nurture.
Back down to the hospital, the first time this year, with a relative, popping into the phlebotomy department for a blood test. Nothing serious but it’s always nice to have company at the clinic and it gave me the chance to do a bit of scribbling. Hospital waiting rooms are good because people tend to be around long enough to get some detail and a reasonable likeness but not long enough generally to notice what you’re doing, scribbling furiously in the corner, trying not to get noticed :).
I used Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens in sizes S and F into my clothbound A5 Laura Ashley sketchbook, prepared with ripped brown parcel paper and Pritt stick.
I’m working on a series of drawings for my next exhibition in December. I find it’s a problem deciding what to do for exhibitions. It’s relatively easy if you’re given a theme and plenty of time, or if you’re only putting one or two works into a large group show, but I have to do a minimum of 20 pieces for this one. I’ve been wondering for ages what to do with my sketchbook drawings and I’ve decided to redraw a series of them onto ‘transfer’ prints. My exhibition’s working title is ‘In The City’ because I’m using sketches of people, and things, that I scribble as I’m wandering around the streets. I’ve been doing them in batches, preparing the background ‘transfer’ prints five at a time at Swansea Print Workshop, then pencilling several and then inking them. If you want to know how to do a transfer print, click here. I’ve got about 15 sorted, so just a few more to go, then the framing, then the labelling, then the opening night – maybe it’s easier to go and stack shelves in a supermarket! 😉
I love where I live. The annual Santa’s parade came round again this evening and Husb and I went down to the main road at the end of our street to watch it go by. Some of my Muslim neighbours were out in their headscarves and Ugg boots enjoying the celebrations with their kids.
And next to me was a young African student in wild red and black checked shorts (it’s quite mild here at the moment). He was filming it all on his I Pad and streaming it to relatives back home.
There’s a brothel opposite and some of the shady ladies came out and sat on the windowstill to see the parade. The large man seemed to be one of their regulars. I heard him say that he’d be up after Santa had gone. It was great standing in the street with thousands of people from all walks of life, all having a lovely time, all sober, all enjoying ourselves. Nice 😀
I’ve spent 2 days working on this at Creative Bubble artspace. It’s a very different experience to normal. Getting away from the studio means that I can try out something completely different, with plenty of wall space to spread out on and loads of interaction with both motivated and talented artists and interested members of the public who can come in and talk to us as we work. We’ve packed up now and I’ve brought this home. It’s about 5 feet long so I’ll have to find some more wallspace for it but not for another few weeks, because I have a load of work to finish off for an exhibition in December. It’s great to have a chance to let loose and experiment. Here’s about half of the piece I’ve been working on.
I’m a member of an art collective called 15 Hundred Lives and we have a regular event at the Creative Bubble Artspace in Swansea. We open the door to the public for two days a month and invite people to see what it is that artists do all day. Many people only experience art once it’s on a gallery wall and have no idea what goes into producing it. We’re trying to break down those barriers and give people a chance to pop in at any stage of the genesis of a new artwork. This month we are working to the theme of memory and inviting people to bring a memory in to share with us. We had lots today – some did drawings, one brought a pinhole photograph and we even had poetry and a piece of performance art to inspire us.
I haven’t worked like this before. I normally draw obsessively from life or, at a pinch, from research and photographs. I made a start using a sketch I made of my little nephew a few months ago and then worked back from him into my past. This is it at the end of Day 1 – I have a full day of work on it tomorrow. It’s on 2 pieces of heavyweight cotton rag paper, each A0, stretched onto the wall – it’s pretty big. I gave the whole lot a coat of gesso yesterday and rubbed it with yellow ochre acrylic paint and then drew today with carbon, charcoal, oil bars, white conte crayon and a reed pen with Indian ink.
More tomorrow……..
Just back from life drawing with this one-hour study in yellow ochre oil paint on BFK Rives paper, size A3, drawing in carbon, graphite, black and white conte and traditional dip pen with Indian ink. Off to bed now. Goodnight zzzzzzzz
It’s CHRISTMASSSSSSSSSSSSSSS …erm.. showtime!. A bit of arty bloggage from talented printmaker Kara Seaman
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