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Chunky Cat In Motion

Greetings hairless apes. Sparta Puss here. It’s been a while. I’ve been busy, y’know, eating, sleeping, fleecing elderly humans of their winter heating allowance, sleeping, murdering rodents, sleeping, a bit more sleeping…….the usual. This evening I amused myself with a rubber band. The she-monkey was throwing it around for me. She says I’m getting chunky. I don’t know what she means! It’s my winter fur coat. It’s fluff, not chunk!

The she-monkey scratched these marks into a book with a stick with dirt coming out of it. She says she needs to practice drawing movement. She says it’s me. She’s obviously deluded. This is a chunky cat, not a svelte cat in a winter fur coat. The she-monkey says she must have the discipline of drawing every day. Discipline??! What an idiot.

They apes have lit the fire. I’m sitting right in front of it. The apes are on the other side of the room. They know their place. They are idiots. Stupid she-monkey says it’s scribbled with Faber Castell Pitt pens, sizes F and M. Do they taste good? No! I chewed them and they taste awful. Almost as awful as dogs. And bald monkeys. Idiots, all of them.

Meet the Artists

Yesterday was the opening of the Swansea Print Workshop’s annual exhibition which is hosted for the first time at the Cynon Valley Museum and Gallery. It runs until January 11th and here’s a little man looking at one of my monotypes. There’s a “Meet the Artist” event from 2 til 3.30 on December 10th, with tea and bara brith. If you’re in the Aberdare area,please drop by 🙂

Whovian

We took two of our little nephews to the cinema this evening to see the 3D link-up of the BBC’s 50th anniversary Doctor Who special. They were beside themselves with excitement, as were Husb and I and the rest of the packed audience. Back in 1963, my sister and I hid behind the settee, peeping through our fingers at the first episode of Doctor Who and I’ve been a Whovian ever since. We loved the special tonight and I had a chance to have a quick scribble in the cinema; a mother and daughter in the row in front and one of the little nephews in his oversized 3D glasses, laughing at the trailers.

Curry Boy

Have a 9 year old nephew staying for the weekend and when he arrived at teatime he suggested that we might go to our local curry house, The Vojon, to ‘save’ me from having to cook. How thoughtful. He’s now old enough to order from the menu himself. He sticks with the safe choice in the kids’ menu, Chicken Tikka Masala, but he tries what Husb and I have as well, so today he got to appreciate a fine Handi Lamb Polongwala and a Chicken Sag Takka-Takka-Tin.

I made him sit still for me to have a scribble and I noticed how his skull is changing shape, not quite so alien any more, starting to show signs of turning human. He still has ridiculously large eyes and long eyelashes though. Drawn into my clothbound A5 sketchbook, prepared with ripped brown parcel paper stuck in with Pritt. I used Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens, sizes S, F and M.

Just a Quickie

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.

SSAESFCFA are go….

Reblogging this hilarious spoof about superheroes in Wales and their battle against bureaucracy…….

SSAESFCFA are go…..

Cwtch The Potential

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.

Waiting For Phlebotomy

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.

Inking Up

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! 😉

Scarves, Streaming and Shady Ladies

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 😀

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