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Feathery Fidgety Fellows

I’m part of an artist collective called Commensalis that aims to organise pop-up exhibitions in quirky places to get our work seen by a good cross-section of people, not only dedicated artanistas. We’ve found a geat mortuary chapel in Bath, UK and we’re busy raising some money through crowd-funding to cover the costs of putting on an artshow as we don’t get any public funding.

It’s the first time we’ve tried this and it’s certainly a learning experience. It works by inviting people to become sponsors and in return they can choose a ‘reward’. We’re 3 weeks in and we’ve raised just over 40% of our target, which is really good, but it’s slowed down a bit over the past few days so we’re taking some of the rewards off the site and putting new ones up.

These are some tiny drawings I did a while back just after Woolworth’s Stores closed. I used to sit in Waterstones cafe opposite our local Woollies and sketch pigeons that quickly colonised the lettering on the building’s facade. Once the store had closed permanently, the signage was no longer illuminated so it was cool enough for the pigeons to sit on. They fidget all the time so it wasn’t easy to draw them!

They’re original drawings in pen onto Cotman watercolour paper, mounted onto Fabriano that I coloured randomly with a metallic acrylic medium. The overall size is approximately 15 cms square and they’re ready for framing. They’re available as rewards from our Commensalis crowdfunding site if you fancy giving one of the little fellows a home 🙂

Nude And Flower

Here’s a life drawing of one of our older models; a retired teacher who is covered with tattoos. I drew her in Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens and black and white conte crayon, onto a piece of mountboard that I’d prepared with a couple of coats of acrylic gesso and then randomly sponged some Indian ink wash. After finishing the figure, I focussed in on one of her tattoos, a pitcher plant, and drew a more detailed study of it. Got a lurgi – so many going around throughout the long, hard winter, so cwtched up in a blanket with Sparta Puss snuggled next to me, sipping Beecham’s Powders. I’m sipping them. Not Sparta. She’s a cat. Must shift the lurgi before I go to the USA, which is only NEXT WEEK!!!!!

Cutting The Pig

I haven’t been able to settle down to work on my large pieces of art because of this darn lurgi. So today I grabbed a little bit of lino, transferred a sketchbook drawing I made at the weekend of Arthur the Mangalitza boar and cut away. I’ll print the block in black next week.

Recycled Head

At the print workshop we work with some beautiful papers and always use the best quality for the courses we run. It’s surprising how many people never collect their work afterwards. Even if they don’t like the image, there’s a lovely – and expensive – piece of paper that can be used again. I’m always trawling the paper recycling bin for anything that can be re-used. I found some pieces of Bockingford 250gsm that had been prepared for cyanotype but then thrown away without exposing an image onto them, leaving a gorgeous expanse of blue. I went to life drawing group this evening and after a dodgy start, settled into drawing a portrait of our model in black and white conte crayon, which worked very well with the heavy texture of Bockingford.

Fifth Rosetta Stone language is Welsh

More irreverent frivolity from this crazy Welshman

Fifth Rosetta Stone language is Welsh.

The Bedroom Tax

People outside Britain might not have heard of this, but it’s a very unpopular and divisive new tax affecting the poorest people in society. If you are living in a public-sector home with more than one bedroom and receive welfare benefits you’ll lose at least 14% of your housing benefit. This is a significant amount of money for the people concerned. In Wales, 28,000 households will be affected. They will be expected to pay the extra tax or move to smaller properties. But there are only 400 one-bedroomed homes in the public sector. Now, I went to a State Primary school, where I learned arithmetic. I can work out that 28,000 into 400 won’t go. Unfortunately the people who govern us don’t seem able to do basic maths. Strange, when you think that most of them went to the poshest, most expensive schools in Britain. Obviously a waste of money.

There have been loads of protests around the country. I went to a couple for a scribble. I’m not affected by this tax but I have friends who are and I’m going to these protests to support them and because I think this tax is cruel. My friends are decent, kind, law-abiding people who are living in absolute terror in case they can’t manage to pay this heinous charge out of their tiny benefits or low wages. If they cannot pay they may lose their homes. The government expects them to move to the private sector, which has much higher rents and poorer quality housing. Which will cost the state more in housing benefit and increased healthcare. But they can’t do maths, can they? Or else they want to see a return of vast slum estates managed by unscrupulous slum landlords. Either way, it is shameful.

I drew these into my A5 pink silk recycled sari sketchbook, with a Pentel V5 pen, later augmented with Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens, sizes S, M and B. It was raining and the damp paper was difficult to draw on. It’s good practice to draw crowds; to get the measurements and proportions to look right. I might try redrawing from these to see if I can put a composite picture together.

Art Imitating Life

A marvellous blog from Chaucutier, with the difficulties of maintaining a small farm in the present economic climate and loads of arty stuff as well.

Charcutier

On Monday night Liesel and I headed out to the theatre. We rarely have the opportunity to do so nowadays, having been up and working for 13hrs we had to pack up quickly in order to make the start of the performance. So what did we see? A new ‘promenade’ performance from Theatr Genedlaethol called Tir Sir Gar. I won’t divulge everything as it’s well worth attending, I know performances have sold well, so purchase your tickets asap.

Saying that we went to the theatre is a little misleading. We didn’t attend a physical theatre in the traditional sense, but the mainstay of the acting performance took part in the varying rooms of Carmarthen County Museum. During our bus journey to the Museum, the shows ‘curator’ Marc Rees mentioned that there were two strands to the performance a fictional and factual one. The first, the fictional theatre piece tracked…

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The Final Piggahs

Here are the last of my scribblings of pigs down on the farm in Pontyates. Some more drawings of Arthur and Mango, two of the Mangalitza pigs; Mangalica in it’s native Hungarian, one of three breeds of curly-haired hog originally bred in Hungary.

There is a third Mangalitsa, a ginger sow called Lisa, but she was too shy to come and see us. They’ve only been in Britain for about six or seven years so I was lucky to be able to see some. Arthur and Mango were very engrossed in scoffing their hay and barley at first, but became a bit friendlier. They’re pretty large beasts and sometimes jump the fence and go for a wander.

Arthur got quite vocal too with a surprisingly loud, gruff voice. The Mangalitza’s legs are much bigger and stockier than those of the dainty little Berkshire piggies that also live on the farm. Nice for juicy ham! As well as doing some drypoint etchings from these scribbles, I’m also tempted to do some tiny linocuts.

More Pontyates Piggahs

Husb and I visited some friends on a small farm in Pontyates yesterday and I drew their pigs. They have three Mangalitzas billeted in their woodland, two of them showed up for their barley and hay snackage; the ginger one was shy and stayed away. I scribbled the other two who are very different to the little Berkshires I blogged yesterday. They’re much bigger and very, very hairy. One of them was positively curly! This made it harder to draw any detail on them but they lent themselves to my very scribbly style.

Pontyates is a small Welsh-speaking village West of Llanelli with a fish and chip shop. Dot Cotton, from East Enders, was evacuated to Pontyates during the war and one of its most famous daughters is Mandy Rice-Davies who was involved in the Profumo scandal.

These Mangalitzas are European curly-haired hogs, descended from wild boar and mainly kept for lard. But because people aren’t so keen on lard anymore, they’re now classified as a rare breed. Bring back Lardy Cake, I say! These are destined to be little tiny drypoint etchings, scribbled into paper drypoint plates.

Pontyates Piggahs

Husb and I spent a happy few hours with Illtud and Liesel at their farm in Pontyates and I took the opportunity of sketching their pigs. Illtud also writes an excellent blog about being an artisan charcutier, but vegetarians might find it a bit much.

I started off by sketching some of the little pedigree Berkshire piggahs during feeding time. They’re about 4 months old and they were not at all interested in the furless monkeys gawping at them and kept their noses firmly in their trough.

It was weird drawing an animal I’m not used to. Mostly I draw people and cats and it took a while to get used to a new physiology. I tried scribbling with a Pentel V5 pen and also with black and white conte crayon.

They’re short-haired piggahs, mostly black with darling little white socks and white splashes on their faces. They are remarkably dainty and walk around almost on tiptoe, like teeny piggah ballerinas. Some of these might be reworked as drypoint etchings in the near future.

Tomorrow, more Pontyates Piggahs.

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