The real reason why Santa doesn’t come to Wales and we have to do all our Xmas shopping in the rain, from the madcap pen of Notsogreatdictator Smith
Nadolig Llawen
Here’s one of Husb’s drawings for a change. He caught Sparta Puss beautifully in this digital drawing. I played with it in Adobe Photoshop to make it Chrismassy. So Nadolig Llawen to everyone (that’s Merry Xmas in Welsh / Cymraeg).
Speedy Sprogs
Today, Husb and I went to a family Xmas party which was overrun with sprogs and ankle-biters. I was put on tattoo duty, applying temporary tatts to tiny arms and faces but had a chance to scribble during lulls in demand for skin decor. The trouble with sprogs at a party is that they are hyped up to the max and stuffed full of sugar so there’s no chance that they’re going to be nice and still while I draw them.
I had seconds to draw each figure which is just enough time to get a fleeting impression of form, movement and proportion before they’re up and off. Drawn into my cloth-bound A5 sketchbook with Faber Castell Pitt pens size F and M.
Death And The Tote Bags
Husb and I went to the National Gallery in London a couple of days ago mainly to see the exhibition, ‘Facing The Modern, The Portrait In Vienna 1900‘. It’s a fabulous show with paintings, sculptures and drawings from Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka and many others. One of the rooms featured portraits of the dead and dying, which were popular at the time, including the moving drawing of Edith Schiele by her husband just hours before her untimely death from Spanish Flu. He died three days later. Opposite her portrait is a glass case with the death masks of the artists Schiele and Klimt, composer Mahler and the architect Albert Loos. I stopped and drew Egon’s mask. His face seems small, peaceful, with very fine, delicate features. I was very moved by the art in this room; we rarely see such representations of death in our modern society. The only downside to the exhibition are the canvas tote bags in the National Gallery shop which are printed with the deathbed portrait of Edith Schiele. I thought it in poor taste, but maybe I’m being over-sensitive.
Underground Scribbles
I’m catching up with my artblogs because I’ve missed a couple this month. Husb and I took a day trip to London yesterday to catch some exhibitions. We parked west of the city and took the tube in, which gave me time to do a bit of scribbling. The London Underground is usually good for sketching because people ignore each other so I’m rarely caught out. It makes the line wobbly though. Scribbled into my A5 clothbound sketchbook with Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens, sizes F, M and B.
Mongrel Scribbles
Had a hectic few days and I’m behind with my blog so I’m playing catch-up. I went to a small relative’s brithday party recently and the family dog decided she loved me. So, unwilling as I am to pass up any opportunity for a cribble, I sketched her. She was very fidgety because the room was full of small children, eating. And, of course, dropping food on the floor. What an ideal situation for a dog. She’s a medium sized sturdy mongrel with wiry, sandy hair.
Spartypants And The Idiots
Greetings hairless apes. Sparta Puss here. The bald monkeys have been rushing around like idiots for the past few days. They say they’re on holiday but then they go and do loads of D.I.Y. which is hard work, stressful and they are grumpy all the time. But what do I care? I don’t have to do it. I don’t have to do holidays either, because my entire life is a holiday.They are idiots.
So the she-ape says, “sit by the fire, Spartypants, and pose for me”. So I move over to the door and turn my back on her, because she’s an idiot. She says it’s work. I say, “Who’s she kidding, eh?” And what’s with the nickname? Spartypants, Spartykins, Spartypie, Puddypants YEEUURRGGHH! She’s an idiot.
This is her ‘work’ 😉 She rubs bits of paper in a book with no words with a dirty stick and calls it art. Idiot.
Queueing For A Viewing
Husb and I were given free tickets to the cinema this evening, ‘The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty’, with Ben Stiller. I’m not a big fan of Stiller and hated the original ‘Walter Mitty’ film with Danny Kaye but this turned out to be a really good movie. I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially as a lot of it was set in Iceland, one of my favourite places. There was a huge queue in the foyer so I grabbed the chance to practice drawing a group, always good for perspective and proportions. I find it easier to focus on one person to start with and then work out from him / her. Then I pick out that person in a slightly thicker pen to finish off. I used Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens, size F and M into my clothbound A5 sketchbook.
Pavement Scribbles
This is another piece currently in an exhibition, one of the drawings I’ve overlaid on top of solvent transfer prints. The image in the background started as a digital photograph of some strange markings on the city’s pavements. Every so often, a machine goes around the city, scrubbling chewing gum off the paving stones. This leaves odd patterns and I was there with my camera to record some of them. Then I zipped them through Adobe Photoshop Elements: Filter: Adjustments: Posterise. Once they’d been transferred using acetone and an etching press, they give an ethereal look. It’s odd sometimes where artists get imagery from.
The Dancer In The Hairy Slippers
Here’s a piece I finished earlier this month for the exhibition I’m currently in at The Brunswick in Swansea. It’s a combination of a solvent transfer print overlaid with a drawing that started life in one of my sketchbooks. I went to an avant garde theatrical piece by Marega Palser, who also does performance drawing, and sketched this when she sat out for a while as other dancers performed. She wore strange, oversized hairy slippers. The image in the background is a piece of graffiti on a very old factory building, part of Swansea’s Industrial Revolution past. The exhibition runs until next March.
