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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Tidy Scran

Was a bit busy this morning doing some last minute stuff for this evening’s exhibition [below] so Husb and I went to the Continental Caff for our lunch. It’s what we round here call ‘tidy scran’ which means good, filling, unpretentious home cooking. It’s always full of people having a cooked dinner – traditional British food, nice roast meat, lots of vegetables and proper gravy. Behind Husb there was an elder gentleman tucking into his massive plateful. He had a patterned knitted jumper and he kept his cap on. That’s summerwear in Britain this year 😦

If you’re in the Swansea area, a lovely exhibition of miniature prints opens at Swansea Print Workshop tonight. Come and join us for wine, cake and art from 7pm this evening, exhibition is open daily until August 15th. It isn’t raining!!!!!!!!

Men, Boy, Lego

That’s about it really. Two grown men in a room with a small boy and the biggest binful of Lego I’ve ever seen in my life and they’re soon crawling around making a tower of Babel-ish proportions.

Then the little sister knocked it all back down again 🙂

Pies And Leftovers

So we’ve taken down our exhibition in Bath and arrived home, very tired but not much time to rest because next thing is hanging the ‘Leftovers II’ miniature print exhibition that’s come over from the USA, from Wingtip Press in Boise, Idaho. The show opens Tuesday evening at Swansea Print Workshop (7pm if you’re in the area and you’re very welcome) so we’ll be frantically hanging it over the next two days.

We had a lot of kindness shown to us in Bath; we received sponsorship from the local wine merchants and the furniture hire firm and because the gallery, an old mortuary chapel, doesn’t have a toilet, the staff at the ‘Made By Ben‘ pie cafe down the road let us use their facilities. Most welcome. And their home made pies are gorgeous too. Husb and I had a few hours doing the tourist bit on Friday and stopped off at the pie cafe for a spot of brunch. I did this drawing from the window at the back of the snug little tearoom into my A6 recycled, leather-bound sketchbook.