Sunny Sunday

It’s been a difficult few months, with the worst summer in living memory and serious illness and deaths of people dear to us but ….. fingers crossed…… things seem to have calmed down a bit and last Sunday we spend a delightful afternoon in the unexpectedly warm weather, visiting Limeslade with an elderly relative. We had ice cream in the lovely old Fortes cafe and sat and watched the sea crashing over the rocks in the sunshine. Gorgeous. I scribbled this couple across the road from us, engrossed in looking at the view.

I don’t find it easy to draw landscape; I concentrate on making marks and hope for the best. I used my favourite Pilot Hi-Techpoint V5 pen into my A5 recycled sari sketchbook, used across the two pages.

Another New Model

 

It’s a season of new models at our life drawing group; a new female model last week and a new male this week. I had fun with the pastels then did some smaller studies of his hands and feet. It was a one hour pose with some serious foreshortening – I’m a glutton for punishment.

 

Fat Knees

 

Was on my feet all day at Swansea Print Workshop, editioning some photopolymer plates and PVC block prints. I couldn’t wait to soak in a hot bubble bath when I got home and then settled down for a night with the TV and newspaper. Except the cat, Sparta, took over my legs and I had to scribble her! And my fat knees 😦

More Kitteh!

 

Been very busy with work and family for the past week or so and had little time to get out and scribble, so I’ve taken the easy way out and scribbled Sparta Puss who obligingly dosses around the place looking picturesque. It’s hard to keep a fresh approach to a subject that you draw so often so I’ve started getting into the mark-making for its own sake, even if it means abstracting the subject. It helps me to look at the subject in a different way. So here she is, drawn with a Pilot Hi-Techpoint V5 pen (size 0.5) into my recycled purple sari A5 sketchbook, which has little glittery bits flecked through the pages.

Scribbling Sparta

Haven’t done a scribble of Sparta Puss for a while, mainly because she’s so consistently naughty that we spend most of our time with her chasing the mice / rats / birds she brings in to rescue them and get them out of the house! But this evening she was in a very sweet mood and cwtched up next to me on the settee – where she was promptly scribbled!

Drawn with my Pilot Hi-Tecpoint V5 pen (size 0.5) into my purple silk recycled sari A5 sketchbook.

Square Eyes

 

Husb was sitting in a dark corner using his laptop earlier and the screen was reflected in his specs, making his eyes look quite square. So I scribbled him.

By the way, he chose to sit in a dark corner. It isn’t some sort of naughty step type punishment. Honest 🙂

A New Model

 

We had a new model at life drawing tonight. She’s great but I always find it hard when I start to draw a new model, until I get used to them.  I generally use different drawing materials with different models so it takes a while to work out what I’m going to use.

Inspiration

There’s a lot of tecchie stuff to do when you’re an artist and today I started scaling up some sketches onto the large pieces of paper I’ve prepared for a series of ‘manier noir’ drawings. I started by soaking some Fabriano Accademica 240gsm and stretching it onto one of my studio walls (good idea to soak the wall a bit first) and when they were dry, gave them 2 coats of acrylic gesso. Then when that was dry, I rubbed the two outer ones with compressed charcoal and the centre one with graphite block and turpentine.

I’ve been sitting looking at them for a couple of weeks now, frustrated because I couldn’t think what to do with them. Then inspiration finally hit today as I sifted through loads of sketches. I now have a good idea of how I want to progress with the series. People sometimes ask me where my inspiration comes from? For me it’s sitting and thinking, searching through reference material; researching from books and t’Internet, but mostly sitting and thinking and not beating myself up because I’m not constantly working on the making of the art.

Wonky Boots

Only time for a very quickie sketch today so I scribbled my boots which are a bit wonky now that I’ve worn them in. I’m not a shoe person and I don’t like shiny, pristine footwear so I like my boots best when they’re a bit battered. I don’t get the shopping for shoes thing at all. However, I have far more pairs of boots than I let on to Husb 😉

The Little Model

Had a fun weekend with lots of visitors staying and a friend’s birthday celebration curry to go to. My little great-nephew made himself comfortable on a very large bed and played with his Wii, cwtched up with his beloved Garfield hot water bottle. Normally he fidgets and wriggles, but give him a computer game and he’s quiet and still for hours. Great for me – a free model :).