Flappy Hands!

I carried on with the drawing I started yesterday. I left the hands to the last because they’re HARD! So I spent most of this afternoon twisting my left hand awkwardly in a mirror and trying to draw it with my right. I finally got one I’m reasonably happy with so I’m now ready to transfer it to the drawing. When it comes to hands and feet, there’s no substitute in my opinion for practice and academic study. You just got to grit your teeth and get on with it. And no matter how many years practice you put in, you’ll still get it wrong. I’m absolutely certain that all the greats, Leonardo, Michaelangelo and the rest of the Renaissance painters have loads of ‘wrong’ hands flapping about underneath the final versions 🙂

Drawn in HB pencil into an ‘Artbox’ recycled leather bound A6 sketchbook.

Getting Physical.

Drawing over prepared paper.

Getting this studio, almost a year ago now, has transformed my life. I’ve been so productive, my output has increased dramatically, my work is going in directions I’d never imagined and I’m making enough art to get into exhibitions all over the place. In the past, working from home and fitting my art in around a job, meant that for years I didn’t develop significantly or produce enough work to sell. A lot of people don’t realise that being an artist is being two different things – a manufacturer and a retailer. You have to make the art; then you have to get it out there and sell it. It’s not easy and I’m still in the early stages.

And it’s very physical. Because lots of people do art as a hobby they often make the mistake of thinking that it must be quite nice to sit around all day and potter with a paintbrush, but when you’re working at an easel all day, or at a printing press, you can be on your feet for 6, 7, 8 hours, using shoulder and arm muscles over and over again. They need to be exercised regularly so they don’t seize up. I do some small workouts with little dumbbells, a Wrist Ball and Chinese balls, when I remember, to keep my arms, hands and shoulders fit.

I’m working up a series of large drawings from smaller ones I did at life drawing group. They’ll eventually become the template for full-colour reduction monotypes too. Here’s one I started today, working in charcoal onto Fabriano paper previously primed and coloured with acrylic paints in yellow ochre, permanent rose and pthalo blue. It’s coming along nicely but still quite a way to go. I’ve left the hands til the end because they’re the hardest. I’ll work up four or five drawings and then book a few days at Swansea Print Workshop to create a batch of monotypes.

 

Soaking, Stretching and Dead Bunnies.

I spent a few days soaking, stretching and preparing some sheets of paper, Fabriano and Somerset, coating them with several layers of rabbit skin glue [smelly] and then applying random washes of thinned acrylic paint in yellow ochre, permanent rose and pthalo blue respectively, making sure they were translucent enough to create randomised colour combinations. I’m working from life drawings to create large-scale fully worked up drawings in charcoal and oilbars which in turn will be the templates for three-colour reduction monotypes. Here’s a picture of me just getting under way first thing today; I’ve covered the paper [it’s Somerset 250 gsm] with a lightly applied layer of willow charcoal and I’m about to transfer a recent drawing of the soldier who models regularly for our life drawing group at Swansea Print Workshop.

I spent ages trying to get it ‘right’ – it has to be drawn to fit the perspex matrix that I will use for the monotype, but in order to do that I had to do a certain amount of distorting, which I baulked at at first. By 10.30 I was pacing around the studio like Lady MacBeth declaiming ‘Why am I doing this? Why don’t I just stack shelves in Sainsburys?’ Then I dipped into Nigel Spivey’s most excellent book, How Art Made The World, as I remembered seeing something he wrote about how artists have always distored the human body, like Michaelangelo and Schiele, and that gave me a lot more confidence to loosen up and not worry about keeping to accurate proportions.

It’s quite revolting really to use rabbit skin glue, but I haven’t found an alternative that gives the effect I want. I know the rabbits were killed for food, but it still makes me feel like a bunny boiler.

This evening I went to a meeting at Swansea Print Workshop; we had a marketing consultant in to help us with future planning and marketing. It was very useful and we really need something like that because we’re run almost entirely by volunteers with just an occasional drip of project funding and we need to become better at making money if the Print Workshop is to flourish. So if anyone’s around the Swansea area on 12th and 13th of May there’s a terrific short course on creating artist books with Edinburgh-based Printfest Printmaker Of The Year, Kelly Stewart [click for more details]. You’ll end up with a terrific hard-bound artist book and help to support Swansea Print Workshop too. 🙂

 

Weird Aliens

Ink sketch: making pies.

We do some regular sprog-sitting [sorry I’ve been informed she’s a teenager this year, not a sprog] and it’s a chance to try and get to grips with the weird proportions of a child’s head. Their facial features are all scrunched into a much smaller area than an adult and their heads therefore look much larger, with a higher forehead and bigger skull. Like aliens. Their bigger heads then throw out the proportions of the rest of their body. I find them incredibly difficult to draw, but I need to practice.

I’ve been informed that children have bigger heads because they have bigger brains and at least they’re not pinheads like adults. You might have guessed that there’s a young alien looking over my shoulder as I’m writing this. It’s just been in the kitchen making mince pies with Uncle. It makes very good pastry. For an alien……..

 

Big Cushions And DIY

Ink sketch.

We’v had a long weekend of D.I.Y. and we’re grubby and tired so catching some relaxation with BBC’s ‘The Voice’. Iwasn’t expecting to like it at all but Tom Jones is such a legend and Will.I.Am is delightfully funny and the standard of singing is good to spectacular. Husb is chilling out on the big settee surrounded by cushions and it’s fun to draw all the patterns and textures surrounding him. It’s not a good likeness as I was too involved in drawing all the stuff around him.

It’s nice to do a drawing like this because I can go to town on mark-making, creating patterns on a flat plane and not worrying too much about perspective. I’ve been reading Martin Gayford’s recent book about David Hockney, where he discusses how artists see and represent the world, how different it is to photography and even challenges the use of European traditions of perspective and geometry. Interesting stuff.

Greetings Fur-less Monkeys.

Greetings fur-less monkeys. Spartapuss here. I’ve taken charge of the Pooterbox again. Who needs opposable thumbs, eh?

Graphite sketch: Sparta the cat.

The idiot she-monkey’s been at it again, with the pushing a dirty stick around on a book and making grubby marks on the nice clean paper and claiming it looks like me. Now it’s all dirty and I’ll have to lick it clean – when she’s not looking.  Or maybe I’ll get some dirt on my paws and rub them over it and show her how it should be done. I did it before. She ran around shrieking like the monkeys do when they get excitable. Which seems to be most of the time.

I don’t know what’s worse, the shrieking or the kissing. What is it with the fur-less monkeys and all the kissing, eh? One minute they’re behaving themselves reasonably well [I’ve heard there are other types of monkeys who throw their poo!] and the next they’re grabbing hold of you and their great big babboon mouths slobber all over the top of your head! I asked my fellow feline goddess, Ming The Merciless about the kissing. And the shrieking. She says the fur-less monkeys are all quite mad. That makes sense.

Graphite sketch: Ming The Merciless.

The she-monkey did this scribble while Ming The Merciless was asleep. Another nice clean white piece of paper wasted! I’ll have to lick that one clean too. After I’ve had a nap. Or two. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Posh And Tat In Tenby

Ink sketch: the old bookshop down Quay Hill, Tenby.

Had a day off today and went to Tenby which is such a gorgeous little place. I love the way it’s a bonkers mix of complete tat and very posh. You can tell it’s posh because the pound shop is a one-pound-twenty shop ;). Right in the middle is the old section surrounded by the medieval town walls, dating in part from the 13th century. Then the Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian bits circle around it, teetering onto impossibly sheer cliff faces overhanging the beaches. We delivered a load of prints from Swansea Print Workshop to the White Lion Gallery which is having an exhibition throughout May [I have some work in it] and then we strolled around the old harbour on North Beach. The cliff path is a great place for foraging; today we picked a load of wild cliff cabbage which I cooked for tea with lardons, brandy and cream. We met another forager who pointed out some Alexanders – I’d wanted to try them for years but have never been able to identify them. We swapped recipes for wild garlic and chatted about Richard Mabey’s book, Food For Free, which had it’s fortieth anniversary recently. He also wrote Flora Brittanica, which I love.

The sketch is looking down from the top of Quay Hill into the North Beach harbour, with a little old bookstore half way down. Husb went to explore in it while I drew and he said you couldn’t turn around quickly in case piles of books toppled over onto you. It’s drawn into my little Paperblanks Fantastic Felines sketchbook that I love. I had it for Xmas and it’s nearly finished now.

A Brand New Life Drawing

Charcoal and pastel life drawing.

Just got back from life-drawing group at Swansea Print Workshop. We had a very experienced model this evening who also models at our local university. She has one of those Dutch ‘peasant’ faces that Van Gogh used to paint, like in the Potato Eaters. I mean this in the nicest way – very interesting features. I’ve been reading my new book about David Hockney and he’s been going on about how the more we artists look, the more we see and he’s certainly right about that. When you just glance at people you only take in a little impression but when you really look, all sorts of colours appear. Well, they do to me anyway 🙂

 

I particularly like drawing these scrunched-up, foetal poses. This is drawn with compressed charcoal and oil pastels into my A3 Bockingford sketchbook, which has a lovely creamy paper, used double-sided.

Birthday Books And French Breasts.

Ink sketch: Oystermouth Castle.

Another birthday! Woohoo! Husb gave me three excellent books first thing and then took me this evening for a gorgeous meal at PAs wine bar in Mumbles, one of our favourite restaurants. While we were waiting I sketched the Norman Oystermouth Castle, currently being renovated in the distance behind some of the little Victorian cottages tottering down one of the many Mumbles hills. It’s a funny name, Mumbles. Legend has it that French sailors, upon seeing the two small islands offshore, shouted “Mamelles” which means breasts. Trust the French, eh? The word could also come from Celtic, Latin or Nordic roots but I think I prefer the French story. Drawn into my little A6 cat-themed sketchbook.

The books: Rob Brydon – ‘Small Man In A Book‘ / Philip Pullman – ‘The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ’ / Martin Gayford – ‘A Bigger Message: Conversations With David Hockney‘ . Plenty of reading for weeks to come – lovely 🙂

 

Cats And Seaweed

Ink sketches: cat throwing shapes

Today I fancied doing some tehnical exercises in my sketchbook, just for a few minutes, so I squinted my eyes and drew the outline shapes thrown by my little cat Sparta. It’s not that easy because the second you start to draw a cat, they fidget. Even when they’re asleep! It didn’t take long to scribble these and it helps to analyse positive and negative shapes and to improve accuracy. They’re not pretending to be great art, but in my opinion artists, like all other professionals, need to practice regularly.

Earlier I cooked up some traditional Welsh laverbread to go with locally cured sausage and bacon from Pontiets for our tea. I scraped the glutinous laver into the pan and put its plastic pot on the table. When I turned back, Sparta was on the table [naughty girl], licking the remains of the laver with relish. In my experience, cats are quite conservative eaters, generally preferring only food that can be caught and killed so I was really surprised to see her tucking into laverbread. Must be celebrating her Welsh heritage :).