A Murder?

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I did a drawing in my sketchbook a couple of months ago of a dead crow that Husb and I found when we were out walking and this week I developed it into a drypoint etching. I scratched the image into a paper drypoint plate and printed with black drypoint oil-based ink, partly onto handmade tissue paper with gold leaf as chine colle.  I made 6 prints so it’s a very small edition, but you won’t get many more from any drypoint plate. I’ve called it a murder because the collective noun for crows is a murder. And it’s dead.

Digital Feet

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Today’s been one of those days which is mostly admin. That’s the reality for anyone who’s self employed. It’s not sitting around all day doing creative stuff. I wish. So I really didn’t want to do any drawing today but I set myself the target to draw daily and draw I must.

And the easiest thing to do is to draw my feet, tucked up on a footstool with the telly on. This time I used the Samsung Tablet, having a play with the Magic Marker app . These are my multi coloured Convers. I got them in a sale. That’s the only sort of shopping I like 🙂

Crumbly Gargoyle

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Husb and I spent a couple of days in Dieppe in North-West France last week and I did a few scribbles as I wandered around. I’m a bit of a sap for old churches, especially those with flying buttresses and gargoyles and Saint Remy has loads of crumbling gargoyles grimacing down into the narrow, cobbled streets, each different and each with gaping mouths to let the rain through. This one has a tiny little man crouching beneath him, but the church exterior is in very poor condition and many of the features are indistinct.

I forgot to prepare my sketchbook with brown wrapping paper before I went and had to use some scraps from my friend and a spray-on glue which showed through. There really isn’t a substitute for Pritt in my opinion. I drew with Faber Castell Pritt drawing pens. I’ve come back with a cold! A French lurgi, or should that be Un Lurgi Francais?

Magic Marker Man

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Husb and I have just come back from a quick visit to Dieppe, delightful place. We went by ferry and it was so much more relaxing and much less hassle than flying. I did a few scribbles in my sketchbook but on the way back on the ferry, I sketched this other traveller using the Magic Marker function on my tablet. I’ve been meaning to practice with it but other things have been getting in the way. It’s quite entertaining and easy to use when I’m travelling but I’m not going to be giving up my sketchbook!

Visit To The Ancestors

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On the road again visiting Stonehenge. We have had a look at it from the road a couple of times but did a proper visit today. It was packed with tourists and boiling hot but I could still feel a sense of awe. It’s difficult drawing something so iconic because it’s been done before so many times but you just have to get on with it.

I used to think that the surface texture on the stones was due to weathering or even done by the people who made them. But it turns out that in years gone by, local farmers used to sell hammers to tourists to hack off bits of the stones as souvenirs.

Saving The Palace

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Just got back from a public meeting at The Cove to save Swansea’s historic Palace Theatre. I’ve blogged about this before because it’s a beautiful building sadly fallen into a terrible state of repair. Distinctively wedge-shape, like the Gridiron Building in New York City, it was built in the 1880’s and Charlie Chaplin performed there before going off to America. Anthony Hopkins started his career there and it was the first place in Wales to show a silent movie. It’s been a music hall, a theatre, cinema, bingo hall, gay bar and nightclub and now it’s semi-derelict with trees growing out of its walls and roof.

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Click here if you want to find out more about the campaign to save this gorgeous building. Hopefully, the campaign might set up a preservation trust, a charity that will be able to attract funding to bring it back to life.

Drawn into my clothbound A5 sketchbook with Faber Castell Pitt pens sizes S and B. Drawing groups of people is challenging because of the perspective and proportions, but good practice.

The Tomb Of Victor Noir

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As Husb and I were wandering around Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris last week, we passed by this very unusual and beautiful grave, a bronze slab supporting the realistic, corpse-like bronze statue of the young journalist Victor Noir, murdered by a cousin of Napoleon III,  whose death contributed to the overthrow of the Emperor’s regime. The monument by Jules Dalou is beautiful. Dating from the 1890s and stylistically influenced by Art Nouveau, the bronze has weathered to a rich greenish-grey verdigris, except for the areas around the mouth, toes and crotch, which all gleam with the shiny golden yellow of polished bronze.

At some time a myth grew up that the statue confers fertility on those who kiss it – or perform lewd acts upon it! Hence the shiny bits! The local authority erected a fence around it in 2004, but this was removed because of protests from the women of Paris. Rest In peace? I think not.

Drawn into my A5 clothbound sketchbook, prepared with brown wrapping paper, in Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens sizes S, F, M and B; with watercolour washes and a touch of white gouache.

Up @ The Cove IV

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I’ve blogged this large drawing once before, when I first did it, but I’m blogging it again because it’s being exhibited in a group show of drawings, ‘Up @ The Cove 4’, curated by Tim Kelly. Here’s a link to The Cove’s Facebook page if you want to see more of the exhibitions there.

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It’s nice to take it out of a working space and put it up into a real-world place. The exhibition is entirely of drawings by about a dozen artists, each taking very different approaches and using different media in the pursuit of drawing. It’s on until November. The Cove is a funky cafe-bar with a terrific cellar artspace for solo shows and installations and bi-monthly mixed group shows in the cafe-bar bit. Good Welsh cakes too. Here are some Welsh cakes I drew while I was making them. You have to be quick or they’ll burn 🙂

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A Tough Call

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There was a demonstration in the city centre earlier today, to protest at the possibility of military intervention in Syria. I went along to do a bit of scribbling. It was very good natured with the demonstrators rubbing along next to some youth drama groups performing a medley of showtunes, and lots of people just sitting in the square, sunning themselves.

It’s a tough call. Social Networking sites have been buzzing with arguments for and against all day. “What if we’d done nothing against Hitler” is a powerful argument. “All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing” is another. But can we be sure that it was Assad who ordered the gas attack? Are the opponents of Assad actually any better? And wouldn’t military intervention kill as many, if not more civilians? And of course, there’s the ongoing mess in Iraq and Afghanistan. All equally powerful arguments. It’s a tough call.

Drawn in my A5 cloth-bound sketchbook with Faber Castell Pitt pens, size S and F and watercolour wash. The sketchbook was prepared with ripped brown wrapping paper stuck in with Pritt stick.

On the way to the woods…

Lovely arty musical blog from Kara Seaman