Prelims

13 ben 1

Just got back from life drawing group at Swansea Print Workshop. I tried something different this week. I worked onto an A3 sheet of canvas that I’d prepared with a rhodamine red oil wash. I drew in charcoal and oil bars (black, white and translucent) but it was very difficult to do any detail on that scale. The pose was also more challenging than it looked with some quite severe foreshortening on the right knee. It was a one-hour pose and I spent the last 5 minutes quickly sketching the feet in pen to get some detail down into my A5 pink silk sketchbook.

13 ben 2

I’m pleased with the face and I’ve got the proportions right on the figure and the foot details, so they’re good enough as preliminary drawings and I can see some scope in working from them and making a much larger piece, something quite dramatic I think.

The Columbian

12 colombian

I spend the afternoon at Swansea Print Workshop but didn’t have any plates or blocks ready for inking so I did a spot of drawing instead. This is our lovely old Columbian Press, dating from 1855, with one of our artist/printmakers inking up a collagraph in the foreground.

It’s drawn onto a sheet of stretched Bockingford, sized with rabbit skin glue and coloured randomly with acrylic washes in red, blue and yellow. I used willow charcoal for initial sketching and carbon, white oil pastel and white chalk with a smidgen of yellow oilbar to work it up. It’s A2 size (23.5 x 16.5 inches; 60 x 40 cms).

I was well out of my comfort zone, drawing interiors and machines, although I managed to get a human being in. It’s hard to draw a machine without making it look like a technical illustration so I’ll keep grappling with it.

Ow! Ow! Ow!

11 owowow

I’ve done a lot of walking today, trying to find something to sketch but I was so distracted by the pain from the hideous gnatbites over my legs that I couldn’t find anything that sparked me enough to stop and draw. So I went home, sat down and drew my painful pustules. I’m trying not to take any antihistamines until bedtime because they zonk me out in the day.

I’ve drawn this in my A5 pink silk sari recycled sketchbook with Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens sizes S, F and B in sepia with Vermilion and Deep Red Winsor & Newton Drawing Inks applied with a sable brush. I’ve tried to express the pain by using quite jagged mark-making.

Now I’ve done my blog, I can take the medication zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Allotment Gnats

10 spots

We stayed too late on t’allotment last night and became fodder for swarms of gnats intent on eating us alive. Here’s my neck! The bites hurt! So I took some antihistamine medicine. The label warns that it may make some people drowsy. It’s knocked me senseless!!! I’ve been at sixes and sevens all day and I’m too woozy to draw so I thought I’d show you some of my sketchbooks.

10 sketchbooks

It’s been almost 2 years since I started blogging and here are most of the sketchbooks I’ve been using. The biggest are the two recycled sari silk ones, they’re about size A5 (about 8 x 6 inches or 210 x 148mm). They’re all small enough to fit into a bag or pocket. I love sketchbooks – they’re such gorgeous little objects 🙂

The Castle Cat

09 castle cat

There’s a lovely cat down by our allotment site, beneath Oystermouth Castle. He’s big and fluffy, white and ginger, cuddly and chatty and we’ve often seen him wandering around the Castle but this evening for the first time he came up for a cuddle as we left the allotment. He and Husb sat on the steps and shared a moment. Husb’s wearing his allotment hat, it was still sunny at 8.30 pm and the gnats were vicious.

Sometimes you only have seconds to do a drawing, especially with animals, who don’t appreciate how important it is to hold a pose. I tried a few sketches of him before he settled down for a bit of a cwtch, but even then I only had about a minute before he wandered off. Drawn into my pink recycled sari silk sketchbook, size A5, with faber Castell Pitt drawing pen size S in sepia.

How Can I Work…

….under these conditions!!!!!!!???

07 ming

My studio has been invaded by two small furry feline felons! The little criminals have been sunbathing all over my canvas!

07 sparta

Inky Lady

06 tonya

Just got back from this evening’s weekly life drawing session at Swansea Print Workshop. I made a simple Victoria Sandwich to take along for tea break. This is one of our longest-serving models; she’s terrific and can hold a pose perfectly for ages. This is a one-hour pose drawn onto some handmade paper I bought at the Tate Gallery that I prepared with a dark grey ink wash. I used Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens, size M and B for the linework and a brush with Indian ink, white ink and an ink wash for the tones. Size more than A4, not quite A3.

The Stinky Rat

05 sparta

Greetings hairless apes. Sparta Puss here. It’s been a while; I’ve been busy sleeping, eating, hunting, sleeping….. The trained primates disappeared for a couple of days last week and left Ming and myself alone in the house overnight with an automatic food dispenser. Result!

Soon got bored with over-eating so I caught a rat and brought it back and chewed it a bit and let it go in the kitchen and it ran into a cupboard where I couldn’t get to it and it died. Then the monkeys came home. I didn’t let on. Just waited a few days until the vile stench started. Well, the apes went crazy trying to find out what the smell was and where it was coming from. Soooooo funny. It’s quite hot at the moment and the smell’s been getting stronger, really ripe.

Finally, this evening, the he-monkey searched all the cupboards and found the stinky rat. The she-ape screamed the place down. Soooooooo funny. They should make a bit more effort to keep the place clean, in my opinion.

The she-ape lit smelly candles all over the house and then banned me from playing with the pretty fire bit! Here are some scratchy lines the she-monkey did earlier. She says it’s me. She’s an idiot.

Havin’ A Fag

04 full moon

Today I did these scribbles opposite the infamous ‘Full Moon’ pub in High Street, Swansea, just around the corner from where I lived until I was 6. Then all the houses were knocked down as part of a massive slum clearance programme and we went to live in a council house. But they left the pub and a few shops. It was about 11.30 and the pub was pretty full with a steady stream of punters coming out to have a fag. I did 3 hasty sketches then went for a delightful lunch in the Continental Caff in Castle Street.

Readers from outside Britain please note that havin’ a fag means to smoke a cigarette 🙂

Summer In The Square

03 summersquare

It’s SUMMER!!!! It’s about 19C and the sun is out and there’s no rain and that’s good enough to qualify as Summer in Britain. Met up with teenage niece after school this afternoon and sat awhile on the steps in Castle Square, supping milkshakes and sketching the other people sharing the sunshine. No-one’s ready to take coats and hats off yet though.