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New Skills

No drawing today because I’ve been learning something new; I’ve been editing my first video. Last Spring, I went to Wingtip Press in Boise, Idaho to do an artist residency. While I was there I accumulated some simple film footage on my little Sony Cyber-shot and it’s been waiting 8 months for me to get round to editing it into a short video.

So I’ve been slaving in front of a hot computer all day, working on Adobe Premier Pro, cutting the footage together. I’ve done a rough cut and this evening I’ve been writing the commentary. The filming was completely unplanned and there’s no coherent soundtrack so I’m going to do a voiceover with subtitles. Husb has set me up with a YouTube channel and I hope to upload my very first film later this week.

Hare Cuts

*Groan*, another bad hare pun! I’m using some of the wildlife sketches I’ve done to develop some very simple lino blocks that will be printed up into smallish editions in the next few weeks. I’ve just made a start on the first one. I’ve hand drawn the hare onto the lino, using my original sketch as a guide and I’ve started cutting around the outer edge with a small gouge.

You can see my ‘slipstrop’ in the picture; it’s a leather sharpening block which uses a yellow polishing compound on its surface. I give my tools a couple of strokes on the strop after every 4 or 5 cuts to keep them sharp. Underneath is my bench hook; that’s what I cut the blocks on as they can be held firmly while I cut into them. The sharp tools can give nasty cuts if they slip, so a bench hook is a vital piece of equipment.

Tube And Tate

Just back from a day trip to London to see the Paul Klee exhibition at Tate Modern. I had a bit of a scribble on the London Underground before the show. It’s difficult to look at someone like Klee with fresh eyes because he was so influential that his legacy is all around us in illustration, textile design, advertising, and I find it hard to see past that and appreciate how truly innovative he was at the time. He was one of the artists that the Nazis labelled as degenerate, but now his work is mainstream.

I thought the show was very well curated and took visitors through the development of his life and work with a vast collection of pieces. We also had the chance to go to the Tate Members’ Lounge as guests of our friends, so we sat on the roof terrace overlooking London in the crisp sunshine hobnobbing with the privileged! And me a scruffy urchin from a council estate 😀

Badgered!

I’ve had enough of hares and I’ve moved onto badgers. I very rarely draw animals, except cats, so it takes a while to get used to alien anatomy. Here are the first two sketches, trying to get to grips with the proportions and where different bits go. They have blocky little legs.

By the third sketch, I was relaxing and getting used to the little beasties and had a bit more fun with the mark making. Drawing from photographs isn’t satisfactory because it’s surprising how much detail simply isn’t there. “The camera doesn’t lie”, they used to say. No, but it misses out an awful lot. I shall have to search out some taxidermy at the local museum. Drawn into my little A6 spotty sketchbook with Derwent pencils in B and 3B.

Head Shot

Just got back from life drawing group at Swansea Print Workshop where I concentrated on doing a portrait. I’ve been doing life drawing and studying anatomy for decades but I don’t think I get enough practice with faces, so I’m going to focus on heads for a bit. This is a pretty good likeness.

I used a recycled piece of Somerset printmaking paper, approximately size A3 that I’d prepared with a grey ink wash applied with a sponge. I’d also done another drawing on it some months ago, but it didn’t work out so I drew over it. I think that added richness and depth to the final piece. I used compressed charcoal and white chalk, with white oil pastel for the highlights.

Bad Hare Day

Yesterday was a good hare day, today a bad hare day. The expression on the face is OK but the ears are WAY too small. Drawn into my A6 spotty sketchbook with Derwent pencils in B and 3B from a photograph. Oh well, can’t win ’em all. I’ve done enough hares now, so no more bad puns from me 🙂

Good Hare Day

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

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.

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