Art, A Mortuary and Beautiful Bath

Yesterday was incredibly busy and tiring; I’m part of a group of six artists from Swansea who travelled to the lovely city of Bath to put up and launch our exhibition, Commensalis. We started packing the car at 7.00 am and arrived back home just before midnight. PHEW! It’s on until Sunday evening and includes poetry, storytelling and Swedish Jazz/Folk, along with two artists in conversation (I’m one of them) and it’s all FREE. So if you’re anywhere in the area please look in – the programme is on the website.

Just before we opened I sloped off outside for a quick scribble. The venue, Walcot Chapel, is an extraordinarygothic mortuary chapel dating back to the 1840’s. At the front is a massive porch so I sat outside for a few minutes, looking through the archway on my right, sketching the old, yellowy Bathstone buildings across the graveyard. Bath is such a lovely city and one of my favourite places in the UK. I was given a copy of a marvellous book of photographs and quotations, Beautiful Bath: A souvenir in words and images that marries gorgeous photography with pithy quotes from the last 1000 years. Lovely.

Sedum And Spartapuss

Today there was sunshine. Lots of sunshine. No rain. I was up and about really early and took a cup of tea into the garden to sit in the sunshine. Sparta the puss had the same idea [without the cup of tea, she prefers milk]. She was sitting sunbathing on a little brick wall behind an enormous clump of sedum. I like the sedum because it provides flowers quite late in the year which is really good for insects. I try to make the garden friendly to wildlife. We have bats visiting each evening, hoovering up the insects over the pond and there’s a good range of birds.  I quickly sketched Sparta and the sedum. I don’t particularly like drawing nature, it’s hard to draw plants without making them look like botanical drawings. I find it challenging to come up with a visual shorthand for them but this drawing isn’t too bad, I’ve never drawn the sedum before.

Sparta and I had a big argument just before I did the drawing. She ran into the kitchen with a newly murdered sparrow. I took it off her and gave her a row. Like she was bothered! That’s why she was sitting with her back to me in the garden. Sulking.

Bath And Voyeurs

In between all the photopolymer [solar] plate etching over the last couple of weeks, I managed to proof three blocks I’d cut. They’re the first three of a series based on the concept of the artist as voyeur. I lean out of my second floor studio window and take surreptitious photos of people walking below, then I do drawings from them, transfer the drawings to signwriter’s foamboard and cut and incise the image. I’m very pleased with the results – I like the way each figure is restrained within the black square. There will eventually be nine in the series and I’ll probably do an edition of fifteen prints from each block. The foamboard isn’t as robust as wood or lino so the editions can’t be particularly large.

Tomorrow I’ll be finishing off some framing for the exhibition I’m having in Bath with a small group of artists. We’re calling ourselves and the exhibition Commensalis, so if you’re anywhere near Bath next week, please pop in and see us. The opening is on Monday evening and there will be cake! It’s in a spooky old mortuary chapel that’s been converted to a gallery in the ‘Artisan’ quarter of the city. There will also be performances of poetry, storytelling and Swedish Folk/Jazz throughout the week and fellow artist Melanie Ezra and I are ‘in conversation’ on the Friday evening. After all that, I’m going to have a few days off and wander around with my sketchbook, chilling out.

Come Up And See More Etchings [parental guidance]

Here are two more photopolymer plate [solar plate] etchings I did a couple of days ago. I’ve been told that technically, they should be called intaglio prints, not etchings because the metal isn’t actually etched. The male nude is redrawn from a sketchbook study I did about four years ago and I’ve reworked it several times in different monotype techniques. I like the awkwardness of the pose, the painful stretching of the head thrown back and held for quite a long time.This is our young soldier model; he likes to be challenged. He suffers for our art.

I’ve been incorporating text into my drawings and mixed media work for some time, but it’s much harder to do so with most printmaking techniques because you have to work back to front. One of the joys of this method is that you don’t have to draw and write a mirror image. I know da Vinci could write mirror text beautifully, but frankly, there wasn’t much else to do in those days – no TV, no Facebook, no Internet Scrabble, no blogging – so he had plenty of time on his hands 🙂

Tomorrow is the final day of the Swansea and Cardiff Printmakers‘ exhibition in Oriel Canfas, Cardiff – I’m invigilating from 10.30 – 4.30 if anyone’s around – pop in and have a look. And it’s the first of Ros Ford‘s 4-day Open Studio event at Swansea Print Workshop – please do go see the amazing work she’s done during her residency – the time has flown!

Come Up And See My Etchings

Finally, here they are, two of my newest little [A6] photopolymer etchings. There are more to come but I’ve just got back from life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop and it’s my bedtime, so I’ll post the rest over the next couple of days. Goodnight 🙂

Pooped And Proofs

 

Just pulled a nine hour session at Swansea Print Workshop; exposed three new polymer [solar] plates and did 20 proofs from 7 plates and 3 blocks. On my feet all day and completely shattered now. And I forgot to take my camera so I can’t post the proofs I did. So here’s a drawing I did a while back of Husb and his kitteh, Ming the Merciless, asleep. Which is what I am going to be very, very shortly 🙂

Finding the perfect pig…

Fascinating blog from the Pontyates charcutier

charcutierltd's avatarCharcutier

I returned home a few days ago with a van full of butchery equipment, another high street butcher has closed and I was there picking the carcass of knives, hooks and trays like a vulture. Although I was pretty chuffed with my haul (and a wooden block and some stainless steel tables were to follow), I drove home in silence, there was no radio blaring, I didn’t hum a happy tune or sing to myself. I felt pretty bad to be honest. I don’t know the full ins and outs of the business in question – whether it was the right site, whether it was staff problems, whether they’d expanded to soon but it’s a horrid thing seeing a business come to an end.

I’ve had some troubles these past few weeks myself – the breeder that I’ve been sourcing my animals from has decided to concentrate solely on breeding, rather…

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Addicted to Solar Plates!

After the recent two-day course in photopolymer intaglio at Swansea Print Workshop I’ve become a bit obsessive to say the least and I am going into the workshop tomorrow to proof print the 4 A6 plates I completed last week and to expose another three plates from scratch. I’ve been experimenting with a different drawing material; the original plates were exposed from drawings done on Truegrain, but I’m going to use drawings on tracing parchment for the next three plates, which will be 10cm squared as that’s the maximum size of so many miniature print exhibitions nowadays. I’ve adapted these drawings from my sketchbooks – I don’t want to split up my sketchbooks and this might turn out to be a good way  to develop the work in them – I have thousands of drawings!

Quality Control Kitteh-Style

We’re cropping well from our allotment and here’s Little Ming doing a quality control inspection on our latest pick of broad beans. We’ve grown mainly Claudia Aquadulce that I planted last Autumn; I also tried Imperial Longpod and Red Epicure but they didn’t come to much. We pick the young leaves throughout the Spring because they make a delicious salad with the French sorrel and wild garlic that are in season at the same time and they’re also good in stir fries.  I reckon we’ll get one more bag off the plants.

Here’s another drawing I did at last week’s life drawing group. In keeping with the Renaissance techniques I’m trying to incorporate into my work, I used the whole sheet of paper [it was only A6] and filled it with little quick sketches from the same pose.

I used some handmade paper that I bought at the Tate Gallery shop a while back and coloured it with diluted sepia ink and drew with a dip pen and black Indian ink.

Jamming, Scribbling And A Cat

Despite the torrential storms throughout June, we’ve picked loads of loganberries and strawberries. Over 4 kilogrammes of loganberries so far and plenty more to come. We’re running out of room in the freezer so this evening we had a jamming session. And here’s Little Ming posing with eighteen jars of newly made loganberry jam.  There’s no sign of a let up in the bad weather – apparently it’s due to Spanish Plumes. I wish the Spanish would keep their Plumes to themselves!

Here’s one of the drawings I did at life drawing group on Thursday night. I’m keeping to Renaissance techniques for a while, using tiny pieces of handmade paper with a coloured ground and a dip pen, with a little ink wash. I’m enjoying working with these techniques, very focussed and disciplined.