These are the final three portrait drawings I did recently at Swansea Print Workshop‘s weekly life drawing group. I did these in the final hour of the session, she maintained the same pose so I was able to really look and analyse what I was seeing and try and be accurate. I’ll be choosing one of these to develop into a linocut print and I worked to the exact size of the lino block, 10 x 15cms. Not sure which I’m going to choose though.
I love drawing this model at the Swansea Print Workshop’s life drawing group, she has such a fantastic face. I’m focusing on portrait drawing for the next year or so and I’m getting faster at drawing a reasonable likeness. This is a 25 minute pose, drawn in graphite onto a heavyweight vintage paper (no watermark).
These are the warm-up drawings for week 6 of my return to life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop after a gap of several years (see here). My goal is to improve my portrait drawing over the next year. These sketches range between 1 and 15 minutes, using a graphite block onto a good but cheap cartridge paper.
This #Caturday Saturday I’ve gone back almost 11 years to January 2015 and some pen and pencil sketches I made of the late, great Bobbit, a rather curmudgeonly calico cat.
I was one of the “Live” sketchers at this year’s Swansea Fringe, and here’s one of the musicians at Elysium on the first night, in a band called Whilbur. I used graphite onto a thick vintage paper (not watermarked), a water reservoir brush and Derwent Inktense blocks.
Some of my out-and-about sketchbook drawings from December 2014, I think some of them are from a visit to Malta that month.
This is the third and final page of portrait drawings I did recently with a new model at Swansea Print Workshop‘s weekly life drawing group. I did these in the final hour of the session, she kept to one pose so I was able to really look and analyse what I was seeing and try and be accurate on the page. I’ll be choosing one of these to develop into a linocut print, not sure which one yet though.
Here’s the middle set of drawings I did with the new model, 2 x 15mins and a half-hour pose. I scribbled some notes while I analysed the sketches, to learn for the next one. Accurate drawing depends on accurate analysis, seeing what’s there, not what I think is there. Her eyes are very wide-spaced and quite large. She’s lying down in the bottom left, that’s why her face looks a little bit squished.
I’m into week 5 of my return to life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop after a long, long gap (see here). I’ve set myself a goal to improve my portrait drawing over the next year. Here are my warm-up sketches with a new model, two x 5 minutes and one x 10 minutes. I’m using a graphite block onto a cheap cartridge paper for the warm-ups.
Today was brilliant. Today made me feel like all these years of plugging away at my arts practice is worthwhile. Today I won a prize at The Workers Gallery Open (in Ynyshir) and the GSA 9to90 Open (in Swansea). The Workers Gallery has awarded me a voucher for art materials and a gallery show towards the end of 2026, for my linocut “Mari Madarch Abertawe” (above).
I won First Prize in the Alan Curtis portrait category of the GS Artists annual Open, my work was chosen by the man himself. He’s a football legend. I’m very flattered. It’s the first time I’ve taken a cartoony approach to portraiture, obviously made an impact. GSA has awarded me a voucher for art materials as well, so I think I’ll be spending them on lino blocks as I am planning a lot of lino printing in the New Year.
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