Sunshine all day – yaayyy Summer at last. ‘The Industrial Valley’ is the theme for an exhibition coming up in the Autumn for members of Swansea Print Workshop. Some of us are organising a series of drawing days to do preliminary studies for this and today a small group of printmakers went up the Dulais Valley to the National Trust site at Aberdulais Falls, one of the first areas to be developed during the Industrial Revolution. I normally run a mile from doing landscapes but I need to push out of my comfort zone and stop being lazy. Two ink sketches in my A5 cloth-bound sketchbook and a piece in oilbars, onto A2 stretched paper prepared with multi-coloured washes of acrylic paint.
An Inky Threesome
Had a hard day at Swansea Print Workshop today. It was very busy with 6 printmakers working flat out. I was working with Gayle and Chris developing some 3-colour reduction monotypes. I wanted to get in a bit of portraiture practice, working directly from a simple black and white drawing, while the other two wanted to start developing some pieces for the Print Workshop’s themed exhibition later this year on the subject “The Industrial Valley”.
It’s a long process involving drawing directly onto three separate inked plates, then printing them one on top of the other. You can find out more about the technique on my website here. The process produces one full-colour monotype and a secondary ‘ghost’. We used Intaglio Printmaker’s oil-based pigments in Process Yellow, Red and Blue onto BFK Rives 250gsm paper. I’ve been on my feet all day and now I’m going to slob out in front of the telly!
Kisses And Food Porn
Kissing Paper by Lucy Read is a day and night of drawing shenanigans at The Cove in Swansea. Husb and I went earlier today and got stuck in. We painted our lips with a black goo (I think it was graphite and something….) and kissed in sequence…a piece of sellotape, a piece of tissue and a piece of white paper. Lucy hung the MWAH monotypes from a line in the gallery and then we did some drawing with graphite and chalk lips that she’d made from melted down crayons and powdered graphite and chalk. I had my brand new sketchbook to break in – it’s a Laura Ashley cloth-bound notebook, size A5, so I quickly scribbled Husb and pal Elena holding their MWAH monotypes.
And the food porn?
Teatime. Swansea Eton Mess with morello cherries in kirsh, meringue and whipped cream. Nom. Nom. Nom.
Self Made Watercolor in Tubes
This is a brilliant blog about making your own paint. Artists would do this as part of their apprenticehip before the advent of ‘Colourmen’
I’ve been pretty busy the last several days making and tubing a set of watercolors for myself. I had gotten 12 tubes from Daniel Smith recently and I wanted to make one paint for each of them.
I can’t guarantee perfect color accuracy from my scanner, but here’s the swatches for each paint I made. I really like the way Pozzuoli Red and Nicosia Green Earth look next to each other. The Shungite Black Ochre was different from the rest. When I was mixing it with the gum arabic I noticed patches of a slightly oily sheen on top of the liquid. I know that a pigment like lamp black is naturally oily, so maybe this one is too? I really like the paint it made though and I’m planning on making a painting with just this and maybe some of the titanium white.
Here are some things I would…
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Kitty Quickies
Some very quick scribbles, just a few seconds each, of Sparta on the windowsill, poking her head under the curtain watching the dawn chorus with murderous intent. The last one is of Ming, having a stretch on top of the boiler. Scribbled into my tiny little steampunky leather recycled sketchbook, about size A7 using a biro.
Delivery Unit Meeting-room B
Hilarious spoof from the cryptic pen of Notsogreat Dictator Smith
The exploding biscuit incident set in motion a series of events designed to protect the nation and it’s leaders. Based on COBRA (Cabinet Office Briefing Room A); DUMB (Delivery Unit Meeting-room B) was a collection of all the forces of good and true in Wales. Chair of the group, Llewellyn Ap Glynog Elis-Mathias Jones XI, held the ancient and thankfully now honorary title of Executive Quim Buffer to the Royal Household. A Mathias Jones had served Wales since the Stuarts and the family still held great sway in the land.
Also around the table was T.W.P representative, Karen Fremp, Torok the elder, South Wales Police Commissioner Alan Michael, First Minister the Rt Hon Carwyn Jones AM and Julie (the Grand Keeper of The Text). The T.W.P representative, recently described by Carwyn as looking like the skinny Chuckle Brother, stared across the table at Llewellyn. She reached into her jacket…
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Giant Horse Prancing
Here’s the final sketch I did on our Brighton road trip last weekend. Shortly after we left the amazing Silbury Hill on the A4, we spotted the enormous Cherhill White Horse prancing across the hillside. Cue another scribble-stop. It has to be done. I’ve tried to capture the scale of it but it’s hard because you don’t normally see giant horses on hills. It dwarfed the copses of large mature trees on the hilltop. It isn’t the most ancient of the Wiltshire white horses, only a couple of centuries old, first cut in 1780 by a man known locally as ‘the mad doctor’.
AND this is the last page of my lovely A5 pink silk recycled sari sketchbook. It’s always sad to finish one because it contains so many memories but it’s also exciting to start a new one. Now which shall I choose?
What’s Inside?
After Husb and I visited Stonehenge on our way back from Brighton at the weekend, we swung North West to travel cross-country past the Avebury prehistoric complex. We drove round a corner and saw Silbury Hill at close quarters. It was jaw-dropping. It’s right by the road and it’s enormous. Makes you wonder what’s inside it. It’s part of the Avebury complex of ancient monuments. It’s drawn with Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen size F in sepia into my pink silk recycled sari sketchbook.
The Awesome Henge
Driving back from Brighton at the weekend in the sunshine, we travelled cross-country to avoid the hell of the motorway and to appreciate our glorious countryside. We took the A303 past Stonehenge and stopped to do a drawing and some photos. Husb had been before but it was my first visit and it is truly awesome. I’m not using that word frivolously. I was overcome with awe. How on earth did our ancient ancestors move those huge bluestones from the Preseli Mountains in Pembrokeshire in West Wales to the middle of England?
Here’s a bit of trivia. There’s a small parish in Pembrokeshire called Saint Elvis and the anglicised version of Preseli is Presley.
Drawn into my A5 pink silk recycled sari sketchbook – I’ve nearly finished it – using a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen, size F in sepia.
Elderflower Scribbles
We stayed with friends just outside Brighton and got up early on Sunday morning to walk up to the cliff top and explore the green lanes for elderflowers. We make elderflower cordial every year but a couple of years ago had a problem getting one of the ingredients. In Boots the Chemist, Husb asked an assistant (who looked like she had just left school) for some citric acid,
Assistant “What are you going to do with it?”
Husb “Make elderflower cordial.”
Assistant “What’s that?”
Husb “Cordial made with elderflowers. Why are you asking?”
Assistant “Because drug dealers use it.”
Husb “Well, I want to make elderflower cordial so can I have some citric acid please?”
Assistant “Sorry, we don’t sell it anymore.”
Luckily, our local Asian grocer sold it in large bags on the spice rack.
I had to scribble very quickly, focussing only on the most important lines to capture the movement in my pink recycled sari sketchbook (size A5) using a Faber Castell Pitt pen, size F.
scribblah 