A Dandy, An Exile And Cult Pens

Went to the little village of Ystradgynlais this evening to see some new lithographs. They’re created by a very talented young Welsh artist, John Abell, who won a bursary from the Josef Herman Foundation to spend a week at the world-famous Curwen Press to develop a new body of prints. Josef Herman was a refugee artist fleeing the Nazis before the second World War and he settled for a long time in this part of Wales. John is the first winner of this bursary and it’s very exciting to see an artist developing at the start of their career and it’s also great to see work of such passion.

Of course, I took my sketchbook with me, the little A6 recycled paper one in a leather cover and my Pilot V5 pen. It’ll run out soon – I’ll have to get onto Cult Pens and get some more. I drew the artist (a self-confessed Dandy) and then another artist. The drawings are a little bit wonky because I forgot my specs :(.

 

Cult pens. Honestly. I’m SUCH a geek!

Ice Cream And Martini

A fellow blogger calls me the ‘Martini artist’ because I draw anytime, anyplace, anywhere. That dates the both of us as it’s the slogan from Martini adverts from way back when dinosaurs roamed the planet :).  I never pass up the chance to have a quick scribble. This was in a cafe in Mumbles a couple of evenings ago. It’s a very comfy cafe-bar with well padded seats and magazines left about the place. We were listening to Swedish Folk/Jazz duo, Anna Eriksson and Andreas Noren. Fab.

I don’t normally have a sweet tooth, but when it’s very hot, as it has been for about 4 days now, I get a craving for sweet things. Maybe it’s something to do with dehydration. Anyway, I ate icecream twice yesterday AND the day before so I thought I mustn’t do that again. Then these little fellas jumped out at me when I was walking through town. They’re like jelly babies but much older and with bad attitude. I saw them off. All of them. Take No Prisoners! 🙂

Captain Cat And The Rubber Slug

I did about a dozen drawings on the street during the ‘Disruptions II’ event in Swansea on Saturday afternoon – this is the last one I’m going to blog but the set is going up on the Elysium Artspace website some time soon. Here’s Wanda Zyborska performing to unsuspecting citizens as a large rubber slug-like living sculpture  made from recycled rubber inner tubes from agricultural machines.

It’s the start of the summer holidays and after months of torrential rain I took advantage of the sunshine and the company of a small nephew to go out sketching. I bought the nephew a new sketchbook and some charcoal pencils, ignoring his plea for a new Nintendo DS (I don’t even know what that is). We sat in some shade in the Swansea Marina and drew the sculpture of Captain Cat, a character from Dylan Thomas.  The boy’s drawing is a lot better than mine. Here it is. He’s 8.

It’s a year since I started blogging, while I was sitting with my little cat who was dying. My friend has just lost her beloved cat this weekend and I thought I’d repost this first blog as a reminder of how important pets are to so many people……

Rosie Scribblah's avatarscribblah

Bobbit came into our family in July 1993 and 17 years later I’m sitting with her as she sleeps her last sleep, dying gently and quietly with familiar sounds and smells and her human and feline companions around her. If she was suffering I’d take her to the vet for euthanasia, but she’s slipping away peacefully and I want her to die here, in her home.

People who don’t have pets don’t get the relationship. A pet shares part of your journey through life and when a pet dies, that part of your journey is over and you take a new route without your companion. Bobbit has been travelling with me for 17 years and now her journey’s nearly over, mine will change.

It’s a long time for a little cat to share my life. When she arrived aged 8 weeks, she hadn’t ever been outside and we took her…

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Freaky Slug People

 

Yesterday I was a recorder in the ‘Disruption’ happening which was happening in Swansea City Centre. I was one of the artists recording the performances through the medium of drawing. There were some really freaky things going on, which certainly disrupted the city centre. Two blood-stained body bags were carried up the street to the front of a deserted building and two bizarre ‘slug people’ rolled out onto the floor, where they stayed for two hours twitching and occasionally making strange shrieking noises.

 

They got a lot of attention. Their faces were made of nylon stocking masks with revolting googly eyes and slashed mouths. Very horrible but also fascinating.

I wandered up and down the street drawing the happening in an appropriate costume. Here I am. It was hot and smelled of rubber.

Photograph by Sandra Demar.

 

 

 

Simon’s Cat in The Box.

Simon’s Cat – always brilliant – so well observed. Just my my evil furry feline felons

Weirdness Across The City

The city centre embraced post apocalyptic weirdness this afternoon with the Disruption II art event drawing crowds of disbelieving onlookers out and about in the uncharacteristic sunshine. Some artists were performers, some recorders. I was recording through drawing, wandering along the street in a rubber army gas mask and tarpaulin [in the blazing sunshine] clutching my sketchbook and speed-drawing the collective madness around me. This is a creature with a hideous face who was sheltering from the sunshine whilst holding a platter bearing a large fish head. It wasn’t the weirdest thing there today. Tomorrow I will reveal the shrieking slug people.

New sketchbook, new sketching

My pal gave me a brand new sketchbook for a present the other day. It’s very tiny and has very rough hand-made paper which isn’t suitable for the usual fineline pens I use so I had to thnk how to use it. i decided to spend 10 minutes each day sitting in the window on the landing of uor studio block, sketching the people moving below with a lump of graphite. Challenging but good discipline. You have to be very quick and identify the most important features of the figures – no time to do any details – you have mere seconds.

New Male Nude [parental guidance]

This continues my small-scale life drawings using Renaissance techniques and materials. Our model sat up high on top of a plans chest and I scrunched my chair quite close, underneath. This gave me a fairly extreme perspective and foreshortening. I deliberately look out for awkward poses  because – I’m a masochist? 🙂

I used some hand-made paper stained with a sepia ink wash and drew in Indian ink with a dip pen. I did highlights in white conte crayon and the shadows in ink wash with a small sable brush. The paper is approximately A6 in size. I’m going to the print studio next week to make some new solar plates and this is one of the drawings I’ll be using as a source.

Riot Police the untold story

Terrific blog from a lazy film maker 🙂

Not So Great Dictator's avatarNot So Great Dictator Speaks With Words

I started making the Lego Riot Police films a few years ago. I’ve only made five because;  well to be honest it’s because I’m lazy and I should pull my finger out.  Nevertheless a certain theme has emerged which was not apparent in the first one. That theme being the very nature of existence. Typical sit-com fare.

I hadn’t really sorted out who the characters were or what their world view was in the first one so I concentrated on the minutiae of their life. Me being who I am it was always going to be about food and so doughnuts took centre stage.

Here it is. The mean streets of Britain and the difficult decisions made by hard working police every day as they struggle with the work/strife balance.

 

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