The latest instalment of nuttiness from this spoof of superpowers in Wales, from the bonkers imagination of Notsogreatdictator Smith
Renaissance In Bath
Next week I’m exhibiting some work in Bath with an artist collective, Commensalis. I’m showing a group of drawings and photopolymer plate etchings based on the concept of Rinascere, which is an Italian word meaning ‘to be reborn’ or ‘to revive’. I chose it because I have been deliberately working with Renaissance techniques and materials for some time and the word ‘rinascere’ is the root of the word ‘renaissance’. I also identified with it’s meaning ‘to revive’ in the light of the current art trends which have moved away from traditional skills such as drawing and etching. I’m using those traditional techniques in my drawings and then adapting the drawings, done from life (as Renaissance artists did), into intaglio prints.
So if you fancy a day trip to beautiful Bath next week, we’re opening with a party on Monday evening and there will be an artist-in-residence each day demonstrating our techniques. On the final Sunday, from 3-4, there’s tea with the artists with lashings of tea, scones and Victoria Sandwich. The Walcot Mortuary Chapel dates from the 1790s and it’s along Walcot Road, about 10 minutes walk from the railway station. It’s in the artisan area, with very old architecture and loads of antique shops, building salvage yards, vintage clothes and foodie places. It’s gert lush and a nice day out.
Three Heads
I did these three studies a while ago. I wanted to try out different approaches with the same approach, so I did one with compressed charcoal (it’s quite choppy); two with ink and pen, one right handed and one left. The two done with my right (normal) hand are a better likeness but there’s a liveliness to the left-handed sketch that I don’t get with my normal hand.
Commensalis, Bath, 2013.
Zantedeschia Aethiopica
….or the Arum Lily. I have a clump of them in my little wildlife pond in the garden and as it was such a glorious afternoon, I popped out and sketched for 10 minutes or so. I don’t like being out longer becaue I’m a gingery Celt and burn in the sun.
I have been pasting pieces of ripped brown wrapping paper into my sketchbook, to break up the tyrrany of the white page. I drew the outline with a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen, size F in sepia and worked up the layers of white with Winsor & Newton drawing ink and a dip pen. The background has a smudge of white conte crayon and each spadix coloured with W&N yellow drawing ink.
More Kitteh Scribbles And Food Porn
Got almost to the end of the day without doing ANY art. So I grabbed the piece of kitty scribbling I started the other night and carried on with it. Sparta was mooching around on MY chair so I did a few scribbles of her and then just played with my old-fashioned dip pen and Indian ink, enjoying the scratchiness of the flexible nib across the heavily textured Bockingford paper. It’s so unpredicatable, unlike the Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens I normally use which are smooth and consistent.
And here’s the food porn – freshly baked elderflower shortbread made with our home-made elderflower cordial. I used 4 ounces of plain flour, 2 ounces of white Spelt flour, 4 ounces of softened butter, 2 ounces of castor sugar and three teaspoons of elderflower cordial, all squished together and rolled into 16 little balls and squidged onto a baking tray and baked at Gas mark 3 for about 12 minutes.
Bristol And The Beeb
Husb and I went over the border to Bristol today for a delightful day at Spike Print Studio, where three exceptional printmakers did a series of demonstrations and talks about their practice. We walked along the riverbank up to the Mud Dock Deli for lunch and sat upstairs on the mezzanine while I drew the punters queueing at the counter. The foreshortening was severe and they were all sorts of odd shapes.
I made visual notes during the demos by Aoife Layton (mezzotint and digital drawing), Fiona Kelly (contemporary block print and lino etching) and Ros Ford (from drawing to photopolymer intaglio). I also scribbled some of the faces there. Now I’m home, chilling to BBC 3’s excellent Glastonbury coverage.
Spreading It About.
Like many artists I have to do lots of different things to make ends meet and I sometimes work with adult drug and alcohol addicts, developing educational and social skills through creative expression. Which is a bit of a posh way of saying I teach art. I thought I’d show some of the work my students did on the last course. Althought he emphasis is on self-epression, the course is very structured and includes a lot of the history of art and culture. We kicked off with ‘Corps Equise’, a technique used by Dada and Surrealist artists and poets in the early 20th century to release their creativity, including Dali, Magritte, Andre Breton, Valentine Hugo and Paul Elouard.
Then we moved onto cave art and tribal art. I really like the work they did; it was great to see their confidence in what they were doing increase with each session and also kindling an interest in different historical periods of art that they’d had no previous knowledge of. I’m passionate about art; not just about creating it but also spreading it about because it can bring such beauty and interest into peoples lives.
The Felinheli Protocol
Hilarious comedy blog from this Welsh wit. Can’t wait for the next instalment. And I have seen the sleeping giant of Abercrave!
Keep At It
Just back from life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop. I did five drawings over 2 hours and each one was better than the last. It’s not unusual to be a bit rusty at the beginning, but you’ve got to keep at it and not get demoralised. Below are the first four drawings and above the final one. The blue ones are done on discarded cyanotype prints – not mine, I rescued them from the bin at the print workshop. I drew the others onto some nice handmade paper I bought at the Tate Gallery shop, pre-coloured with a sepia ink wash. I used a traditional dip pen and black and white Indian ink by Winsor & Newton.
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