Higgledy Piggledy Hillside.

It’s unusual for me to draw anything other than people and the odd animal but there’s an interesting jumbled cityscape scrambling up the hill opposite the window in my new studio. I’ve injured my foot and my chiropodist asked me to keep off it as much as possible for a few weeks. A few weeks!!!!!! It’s terrible. You only realise how physical art is when some of your body is out of action. Keeping off my feet means not doing any printmaking, not working at the easel, not doing anything large at all. I’m using the time to catch up with admin [tax returns yuk!], reading and research [I have a year’s worth of back copies of a-n magazine to get through] and some chair-based sketching. So to push my artistic boundaries I thought I’d start drawing the cityscape opposite.

Not easy! I have to be disciplined enough to get proportions and perspective right but ‘artsy’ enough so it doesn’t look like an architectural drawing. I’m using a Tate Landscape sketchbook which is 58 x 15 cms fully opened so I can do a panoramic view and I might eventually do several, one above the other, stacking them so I get all the hillside in. At this stage I’m concentrating on accuracy, because I’m new to the subject matter, but maybe there’s scope for redrawing onto Mark Resist [Mylar] film in a much freer style to form the basis for some screenprinting? Hmmmmmmm…….

I’m using a variety of Derwent pencils, from HB and through a range of B grades. I rarely use pencil – don’t like ‘em, but as I’m pushing my boundaries by not drawing the human body, I might as well go the whole hog and try and get used to graphite at the same time. I much prefer the cleaner lines of drawing pens, but there are some nice qualities to the graphite that I haven’t really explored before. Here’s the first stage of the drawing – some of it is still very pale and so far I’ve only used the right hand page of the sketchbook. The left hand side will take in the local brothel. Interesting area!

 

Big Bottomed Cat In A Kitty Sketchbook

My new sketchbook.

I had some new sketchbooks for Xmas. I love getting sketchbooks for presents. This is a lovely little one, about size A6, sewn binding, acid-free sustainable paper and a lovely cover that flips over itself and closes magnetically, by Paperblanks. Chuffed with it. It’s fitting that the very first sketch should be of a cat. Sparta, our tortoiseshell [calico] cat, was just cwtched next to me on the settee and because of the angle she was foreshortened quite a bit, which made her bum look rather big. Mind you, she’s been getting a bit chubby lately anyway. We’re quite strict with our cats and only give them regulation rations, but they have a knack of hunting down pensioners and persuading them to spend their pittance on tidbits. We think this is what’s happening, because when she comes in for her tea, she’s often licking her lips and then turns her nose up at what’s on offer. So maybe her bum isn’t so foreshortened after all. I’ll have to ask Dr. Rayya for her advice lol. I didn’t want to disturb Sparta so I grabbed a biro and used that to sketch with.

Biro sketch: Sparta's big bum.

Male Nude, Female Artist.

Life drawing.

Here’s one of our younger models in a pose reflected in the large mirrors in the drawing studio at Swansea Print Workshop. I like to put the model in the context of the space and show what’s going on around. What I particularly like about this one is that the model is a man and the artist reflected in the mirror is a woman, which reverses a lot of people’s expectations. Life drawing can be quite controversial outside Western Europe – and even within it. I think part of that may be down to the history of art modelling and art, when most [almost all] artists were men and most models were women, considered just a little step above prostitution. Now it’s a credible career choice and we have models from all sorts of backgrounds, none of them exploitative and of course, women are now allowed to be artists. The drawing is in Faber Castell Pitt pens into an A3 sketchbook, drawn across both pages.

Speedy Sketches With Seconds To Spare.

Ink sketch on the New York subway.

I carry a little sketchbook with me at all times [even in the bath lol] and it’s good discipline to take it out and sketch whatever is in front of you, at random. It means that you can’t be too precious about what you’re drawing and also you have to capture the essence of the drawing very quickly because you don’t know when it’s going to change. I’ve visited New York City a few times and it’s a great place to draw, although I avoid the temptation to draw famous landmarks because it’s been done so many times before. I did this little sketch of the two lads on the New York subway very quickly. They were teenagers and full of energy so they kept moving about and I had to ‘get’ them in just a few lines. Faber Castell Pitt pen into an A6 spiral-bound Cotman watercolour sketchpad. I went through a phase of drawing into watercolour pads: I’d like to say it was for artistic reasons but to be honest, they were selling them very cheaply at the time in a local discount store.

 

Ink sketch in East Harlem.

 

Another time, I was visiting the New York International Print Fair with another artist and we were staying in a little hostel in East Harlem – very interesting place with lovely South American food. She was waiting for a take-away meal and I wandered outside. It was about 7pm and this elderly lady was taking her elderly dog for a walk along the street. Both of them were wearing knitted jumpers to keep out the October chill. I quickly drew them at different stages of their stroll, again in Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen but this time into a rather nice A6 ‘postcard’ sketchbook that I bought at the Tate Modern gallery shop before I went to the USA. I filled it with drawings as a present for my husband instead of sending him commercial postcards.

The Vulnerable Artist And The Great Big Draw

At the great big draw.

A few months ago, some of the artists involved in Artawe got together and did a big draw at Elysium Gallery, taking over the space for a week to, well, just to draw. A few of us stapled huge sheets of brown wrapping paper to the walls and the word went out to local artists to come in and draw all over them with charcoal and chalk. Just like we were told NOT to do by our Mams when we were little. We started on a Saturday and continued throughout the following week until the gallery was full. It was open to the public and we were in fullview through the large windows. It was photographed and a short film made of it and then it was ripped down and binned. Ephemeral art indeed. Here’s a photo of the whole thing by Chris Harrendence who drew the amazing top-hatted man on the far left.

At the big draw. Photo by Chris Harrendence.

It was about the time that Ai Wei Wei had ‘disappeared’ in China and my drawing refelcted on the artist’s role and how vulnerable we are if our art challenges political, social or religious norms. I’m looking at my drawing top right, above a work by Sandra Demar and Tim Kelly’s work just behind me. It was brilliant that so many artists turned up just to enjoy the act of drawing together, done on a shoestring, no public funding, advertised by word of mouth and social networking. It was also good that so many members of the public were able to see artists at work. We’re usually closeted away in our studios, houses, garden sheds and garrets.

In the life drawing studio [4] – caution, nude figures.

Ink and watercolour life drawings.

 

It’s been a hard day, finishing painting the walls in the new studio and I haven’t had time to do any sketchbook drawing so far. Did loads of cooking when I got home and then the cats started behaving like mad things – chasing each other all over the place and ripping stuff up. Little furry felons.

This is a page from one of my life-drawing sketchbooks from a couple of years ago. I was going through a watercolour phase, using them to add colour to ink drawings. I use Windsor and Newton artist-quality half pan and Faber Castell Pitt pens.

Jeeps Up The Karakorams

Ink and wash drawing: jeeps in the mountains.

 

About 4 years ago we visited Pakistan, an amazing country, and travelled around in a minibus. We did an incredible 2 day trip up the Karakoram Highway, from Islamabad to the North East mountain region – Pakistani Kashmir. We managed to avoid altitude sickness because our journey took so long, we became acclimatised as we slowly travelled higher and higher. The Karakoram range has eight of the nine highest mountains in the world, including K2. Only Everest in the Himalayas is higher.

We stayed in the lovely village of Karimabad, around 5 thousand feet and built around the ancient fort of Baltit. One day we piled into jeeps and travelled to ‘Eagle’s Nest’ a holiday complex much further up the mountain – about 9,000 feet. The road was punishingly steep and the jeeps crawled slowly, but much faster than we could have done. There was an incredible view of the valley below us, coloured pale pink by the blossom of hundreds of thousands of apricot trees in full bloom. I sat on a rocky outcrop to draw the jeeps, opposite the restaurant where we ate a delicious meal; the cuisine is a mixture of Pakistani and Chinese, we were only about 40 miles from the border with China.

Afterwards we travelled to the tiny village of Altit where the local head teacher had arranged a banquet in our honour. We were expecting tea and biscuits but the entire village had laid on a wonderful spread in the village hall, the only building large enough to accommodate our group and even then it was a tight squeeze. Their generous welcome was so touching because the standard of living in the area is very low compared to Western standards. Everyone has healthcare, education and employment but there are no frills, none of the things we take for granted in the West. For example, the village hall had the only television and video camera in the village, no individuals owned one.

The jeeps had left us in Altit and we all walked back to Baltit, only a couple of miles but at that altitude it was punishing. Elderly people whizzed past us, their lungs used to the thin air, and put us to shame. The garden walls were made of rough lumps of white quartz. As I looked closer, I saw tiny flecks of brilliant colours, green, red, blue, purple – emerald, ruby, sapphire and amethyst. I was incredulous. These rocks are rejected by the local gem mining and cutting industry because the fragments are too small to bother with, so people use them in their gardens.

Tap, Toes And A Designer Duck.

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Graphite drawing: in the bath.

Had a tiring day, painting the new studio walls in the morning and this afternoon, my last session with my small design group at the local drugs treatment agency. I’ve been working with people with drug and alcohol problems for many years and lately have been helping some people in recovery to design posters for heroin addicts. It’s great and I really enjoy it but I was shattered by the end of the day.

Anyway, I jumped into a nice hot bath with mango and passionfruit bubble bath and did this drawing of the end of the bath. People often say to me that they’d like to keep a sketchbook but they don’t know what to draw. DRAW ANYTHING! AND EVERYTHING! Why does there have to be something special to draw? We have a Victorian house dating from 1867 and the original bath is still here. The taps are HUGE with ceramic plaques on the top with HOT and COLD written on them. The bath is enamelled cast iron with a rolltop and lovely curvy legs. The white [well, off-white lol] enamel has formed thick drips over the edge underneath each tap and it’s been fired like that. The duck was bought in a very posh designer duck shop in ‘The Lanes’ in Brighton. Seriously, an entire shop of rubber ducks. How posh is that? Oh and my chubby toes gatecrashed the drawing.

Graphite pencils B and 9B into my absolutely favourite sketchbook at the moment, an A6 recycled, leather bound one by Artbox.

In The New Studio!

Digital photograph through the window wall.

 

At last! My first full day in the new studio. Husb and I moved all my stuff  over from the old studio, across the road and round the corner a bit, in between hospital and nursing home duties, Xmas visits and celebrating the New Year. Britain returned to work today and I started sorting things out and painting the walls white, from a dingy magnolia. This is the north aspect with a huge glass  window wall overlooking the city hill and mostly Victorian housing, with the odd 1960’s building here and there, courtesy of the Blitz. It was pouring with rain when I took this and the gales were ferocious.

Digital photograph facing the door of the studio.

 

Here’s the south aspect, facing the door after I’d painted that half of the studio. Outside the door is a corridor and more studios, smaller and with south facing windows and an exit onto a large flat roof which will be nice to sit on in the summer. You can see the sea from the south-facing studios. It’s so exciting – these studios are so much better than the ones I’ve moved from – they were fine to start with as they were very cheap, but there are a number of us who are ready to move onto the next stage – to hold exhibitions, open-studio events and viewings to start selling our work and this new premises is much better suited to it.

Mixed media: male figure.

I haven’t forgotten a bit of art. This is a curious piece I did a couple of years ago when I was playing around with collage and text. I was working from a live model, an older man, and this is my interpretation at that moment. I often incorporate text into my work, whatever pops into my head at the time usually. I must have been in a funny old mood that evening 🙂

 

Another Drawing On Another Train

Ink drawing on a tube train.

 

I love trains and I love drawing on them. People are usually very respectful and watch over your shoulder but don’t disturb you. It’s something to occupy yourself on the London tube because nobody ever talks to anyone else, unless they’re foreign – that is, from outside London. I don’t know why the London tube is like that; in my experience Londoners are not unfriendly. It isn’t too shaky either and that little bit of shakiness gives the line a nice little wobble.  Here’s a drawing in Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens into an A6 spiral bound Cotman sketchbook.