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 :).

 

Cockles And Icecream

Ink sketch: the beach at Burryport.

Still babysitting and we took the two little ‘uns to the beach at Burryport today. It’s a funny little town which has been a bit rundown for many years, yet has a beautiful harbour with Georgian cottages, a lighthouse and a lovely beach. The car park had a coupke of vans selling seafood and icecream and the sprogs munched their way through a pot of cockles each and finished their repast with a traditional Mr. Whippy. Then off for some beachcombing where I did a couple of sketches. You have to work fast when kids are running around but it’s surprising how much you can get down in a hurry. I love sketching these ordinary little moments in my life; the memories are so much more vivid than they would be with a camera. I just have to flick through my sketchbook and it comes back; the salty taste of the air; the popping sound of the seaweed underfoot, like nature’s bubblewrap; the vivid blue sky and the dark grey ‘Granny’s Custard’. Here’s Husb above with our little great-niece and below our great-nephew exploring a rock pool.

Ink sketch: small boy on the beach.

Sprogs And Curiosities

Ink sketch: a cabinet of curiosities.

It’s been a varied holiday week, saying goodbye at the funeral of a teacher and mentor, Pat Briggs; saying hello to a new little great nephew, as yet unnamed but in the Welsh tradition already nicknamed, Ffredi [which is Welsh for Freddy :)] and two days babysitting small family sprogs. Not a lot of time for art but what the heck, it’s holiday week. Yesterday my sprog-sitting duties took in the latest exhibition by Claire Morgan at Swansea’s Mission Gallery and then off to the old Swansea Museum, forever known to the family children as ‘The Mouse Museum’. While they explored the old Victorian building on the museum’s mouse hunt, I sketched some of the contents of one of the cabinet of curiosities. Dylan Thomas once described it as “the museum that should be in a museum” because it’s so traditional and that’s what I like so much about it. No high tech novelty stuff, just a proper old-fashioned respoitory for curiosities, a relaxed ambience and friendly, slightly eccentric staff [in the nicest possible way].

As I was sketching the collection above, one of the staff wandered past, showing a small group of people around and telling a rather scary story of all the supernatural sightings that have allegedly happened in the very room I was in. I don’t buy into the supernatural at all but I can understand why people think there’s something a bit strange going on at the museum, it’s a very spooky place. There was nothing at all linking the three objects I drew, a South American pot, an African statuette and something labelled only as ‘A Curious Object’ that looked like a cross between a scabbard and a bean pod. I used my Pilot Hi-Techpoint V5 pen size 0.5mm into my A6 Paper Blanks cat-themed sketchbook.

 

Teacher, Artist, Great British Eccentric

Ink sketch: Pat's send-off.

Today was one of those days where I experienced the meaning of the word ‘bittersweet’. I went with many others to the funeral of Pat Briggs, a Swansea-based artist, printmaker and sculptor who taught me in my first year at Swansea Art College, on my Foundation year, almost 40 years ago. We both stuck around Swansea [apart from a few years I spent over the border] and I grew to know her as a fellow artist and great eccentric as well as a valued teacher and mentor. She was born in 1930 and was one of the very few women of her generation to gain a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Art, a great achievement and one of those amazing women that paved the way for my [and subsequent] generations of female artists. Her final illness lasted just a few months but before that she was still an active practitioner, making prints and drawings, using digital media and wandering around the city with her ubiquitous shopping trolley, collecting found objects for her witty and often bizarre sculptures. Here’s a link to the Swansea Print Workshop Facebook page, with Kara Seaman’s photograph of Pat making a print in her final year.

It may seem a bit odd doing a drawing at a funeral, but this is the second one I have done recently, both at funerals of artists. I feel it’s my way, as an artist, to honour their memory. I’d like artists to draw at my funeral. Here is the view from my seat at Swansea Crematorium earlier today. People of all ages came to pay their last respects, from babes in arms to octogenarians. Even the vicar is a former student of hers. It’s a great thing to have a good teacher, something our politicians should take note of. A good teacher will inspire you for life, not just cram you through exams and Pat, a VERY blunt Northerner who didn’t mince words, taught me in my first year at art college about the value of constantly criticising and reevaluating what I’m doing and I’ll always be thankful to her for that.Today was bitter because we’ll miss her but sweet to remember a woman who lived her long life to the full and achieved more than most could even hope for.

Pat Briggs. Artist. 1930-2012.

Drawing A Drawing And Dylan’s Caff

Ink sketch: at my studio.

I’ve not done much artwork the past couple of days, it’s holiday time and I’m trying not to fall into the trap of not taking time off, which is something a lot of self-employed people do. I had a lovely time with an old friend, lunch at Bizzie Lizzies  and an afternoon pot of tea at the legendary Kardomah Cafe, beloved many years ago by Dylan Thomas and his bohemian chums, The Kardomah Gang. It’s still as it was when I was a child, very retro and original. Coincidentally I went for a curry last evening to celebrate a friend’s birthday and met a lady who has leased Dylan Thomas’ old house in Cwmdonkin. You can’t go far in Swansea without tripping over Dylan.

But I couldn’t keep away from the studio and wandered in around teatime just to sit down and chill out and do a little drawing. I’ve posted photos of my studio before but today I’m posting a sketch of my studio, sitting in my comfy chair, looking at the big window with the hillside in the background, a couple of large drawings on my table. Just can’t keep away from this arty stuff.

A Man Constrained [parental guidance – male nudity]

Graphite life drawing.

When I’m at life drawing group I prefer poses that turn the body in on itself in some way, I guess that reflects me and my somewhat dystopic view of life, the universe and everything. I like to draw ‘off-the-page’ and have done so for as long as I can remember, since I was a small child. It’s as if I’ve always felt that people are boxed in, that there are invisible boundaries around us. Some of my lecturers at art college used to try and persuade me to draw an entire figure within the one page, but I rarely managed it. It doesn’t matter how big the piece of paper – and I’ve worked on some huge ones, the figures are nearly always cut off by the edges at some point.

This is our soldier model. I’ve drawn him in two different grades of graphite – 6B and 9B into an A3 Bockingford sketchbook over the double page. I’m pleased with this and I think it may make a good full-colour monotype so I’ll take it into the studio tomorrow and work it up into a full-size drawing, probably onto some Somerset Velvet or Fabriano paper. Our model is exceptionally fit. This was a tortuously twisted pose, rather like a contraposto in Mannerist art and he held it for a full hour. At the end, he had weals across his thighs from the edges of the chair.