A Bit Different

07 alan

I tried something a bit different at life drawing tonight. I’d prepared some small scraps of card with white acrylic gesso and Indian ink before I went to Iceland a few months ago but I didn’t use them all. “Waste not, want not” as my Nana used to say. I started with black and white chinagraph pencils but the effect was too translucent so I switched to black and white conte crayons. Much better. Because they’re quite chunky, I had to ditch my usual fine-line style, but that’s OK, I like to get out of my comfort zone.

Snug As A Bug…

06 snug

“Snug as a bug in a rug”, my Nana used to say. Little nephew is staying the night and watching Avengers Assemble on the big screen. He’s enthralled and just a little bit scared so he’s wrapped himself up in a big spotted blanket on the settee, snug as a bug in a rug.

It’s not easy drawing in the dark, with just the flickering light from the film, but I like a challenge. Small children have alien proportions, their heads are impossibly big. How come they don’t fall over? Scribbled with a Pentel V5 pen into an A5 recycled sari sketchbook.

Bits And Pieces

05 warrior bits

It’s tempting to try and do a complete drawing during the weekly Life Drawing sessions as I use so many of these sketches to develop into monotypes and mixed media pieces. But I also want to use the time to practice my craft and sometimes I focus on different parts of the model rather than the whole body. I’ve always found it hard to get a good portrait likeness with this particular model, but this one is quite reasonable. It’s always good to practice hands and feet too. Drawn in Faber Castell Pitt pens directly into a large Somerset sketchbook, 30cms square. I don’t use pencil to sketch it out first – I like to live dangerously 🙂

Two Blokes I-podding

04 Vojon

It’s meat-free Monday so we went to our favourite curry house, The Vojon, for some sag ponir and garlic rice, sag aloo and tarka dal. Lovely. Restaurants are a good place for a quick scribble and I spotted these two chaps opposite, chatting and i-podding. Scribbled into my A6 blue silk recycled sketchbook with a Pentel V5 pen size 0.5mm.

Cat ‘n’ Cheeses

03 foodie

I spent a busy morning at the print workshop, making a small edition from a photopolymer intaglio plate for the excellent Leftovers IV. It’s a little portrait of Sparta Puss, my furry feline felon.

When I got back, I settled into my comfy chair with a modest cheese sandwich and a mug of tea for a late lunch. I was idly channel-hopping and locked onto a programme that was simultaneously revolting and fascinating. It’s called Man vs Food. O!M!G! People actually eat like THAT?!

03 manvsfood

My little cheese sarnie had two skinny slices of brie. This guy had THREE AND A HALF POUNDS of 14 different molten cheeses in his toastie. YCHYFI! (That’s Welsh for GROSS!). I’d never seen this programme before. I’ll definitely watch it again 😀

Staggers

02 staggers

I was walking back throught the city centre this afternoon and revellers were already piling into Wind Street, Swansea’s notorious nightclub area. I wandered behind a group of women celebrating a birthday and got a close up view of legs staggering along on ridiculously high heels, making them look very muscly and quite bandy.  I stumbled along with my bags of groceries, scribbling as I went. I couldn’t work out where they kept their money.

Culling!

28 recycled scribbles

Life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop tonight and I scribbled over a drawing I did a while back that hadn’t worked out. I used to be much more precious about my drawings and have portfolios stuffed full of them, waiting for a cull. But the last couple of years I’ve been ruthless. I’m using top quality paper and sketchbooks and it’s self-indulgent to keep poor drawings; I’m reusing the paper and getting some interesting results by drawing over existing work, rather than sketching straight onto pristine white paper. Tonight’s life drawing of a younger female model is overlaid onto one of an older male model, some of his bits are showing through which adds another dimension. In order to minimise the original figure I am forced to use far more materials and marks than I would normally, which takes me out of my comfort zone. Which is a good thing.

Drawn into a creamy Somerset hardbound sketchbook, 30cm square, over a double page, with chalky pastels.

Luscious Leftovers

27 leftovers 1

Had a full day at Swansea Print Workshop running a session on making miniature prints, to encourage artists to enter the Leftovers IV print exchange organised by the fabulous Wingtip Press in Boise, Idaho, USA. We’ve been saving our scraps of leftover papers – gorgeous, luscious printmaking papers. I demonstrated two techniques: block (relief) printing using offcuts of signwriter’s foam board. The other technique, drypoint intaglio printing with paper drypoint plates – so cheap and easy to use and so much quicker than copperplate etching. Here are some artists getting down and dirty in the print studio. In the foreground is the most complicated cutting tool we use for these two techniques – a four inch screw with some masking tape wrapped around it :).

27 leftovers 2

Here are some of the drypoint prints done today………

………. and some artists even managed to do an edition to enter for Leftovers IV. Result!

27 leftovers 3

Up The Swans!

26 swans

Our Swansea City Football Team (that’s soccer to anyone outside Britain) has won the League Cup and everyone’s going bonkers!!!!! It’s been a tough recession for the city but the crowds came out in force this afternoon to cheer the victorious team as they paraded through the city in a double decker bus. The atmosphere was terrific – optimistic and happy. I scribbled a few people in the crowd. It’s an excuse to wear daft hats and scarves in black and white, the team colours. Cyril the Swan, our mascot, was on the victory bus too. He’s been voted best mascot in the UK and been arrested, sent off and banned for fighting and swearing. He’s a hell of a bird!

 

Doodlemum’s Competition.

The marvellous blogger, Doodlemum, who lives not far from me, is having a competition for a copy of her new book, signed by the entire family (if she can get Arnie the cat and Bonnie the dog to agree). If you email her a drawing of someone in your family, her children will pick the winner  🙂

Competition..