Cat On A Rucksack On A Blanket On A Footstool

Ink drawing: Cat on a rucksack.

This drawing had to be done! Little one-eyed Ming the Merciless, our fluffy Tortoiseshell [Calico] cat, doing her ‘Princess and the Pea’ stuff again earlier today, dossing on top of a large packed rucksack that had been left on top of a large, well-stuffed leather pouffee that was covered with a thick fleecy blanket. Any one of those would have been comfortable enough for most creatures, but not a cat – oh no! She would probably have liked it better if I’d have draped a newspaper over it all as well. When I ever-so-gingerly moved her to unpack the rucksack, she did one of those stiff-legged storming-off-in-a-huff stomps out of the room, like as if I’d put Smartie tubes on her legs lol.

 

Drawing in Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens, sizes S and M into an Artbox recycled leather bound sketchbook.

Etching with Hogarth!

Drypoint from a paper plate.

 

I like to draw from life and always carry a small sketchbook. I’m enormously inspired by the work of William Hogarth, who catalogued daily life in the 1700s with his meticulous metal engravings. This is a drypoint from a paper plate based on a sketch I did in a tiny Cotman sketchbook. It’s the brothel at the end of our street which is sandwiched between two restaurants. There are often red faces when restaurant patrons go through the wrong door and come rushing back out again pretty fast. The ladies from the brothel often hang out of their upstairs window, watching life go by and chatting to passers-by below. A very Hogarthian subject.

Life Drawing: May and September [parental guidance]

Pastel drawing: May and September.

One week at life drawing group, an administrative error meant that we had our older male model AND our younger female model for the whole session. I’m used to working with just one model at a time so it was quite a challenge to draw the two together, getting them in proportion in relation to each other. On the other hand, it was great to draw the contrasts between old and young, male and female, wrinkled and smooth. The drawing is in soft chalky pastels onto A1 brown wrapping paper using a severely restricted pallette of two colours plus white, which forced me to concentrate on line and form instead of modelling the bodies with naturalistic colour.

The title ‘May and September’ comes from a phrase I used to hear from my Nana’s generation describing a married couple where the husband was considerably older than the wife. Nice way of putting it, I thought.

Skeletons I Have Known [2] SKULL ATTACK!

Chalk, pen and charcoal drawing: Skull Attack #1.

Keeping to the seasonal Halloween theme, I’ve been doing a series of pieces based on the human skull that includes sketches, pastel drawings, cyanotypes and blockprints. These two small drawings were done in chalk, compressed charcoal and Faber Castell Pitt pens into a brown paper sketchbook.

I’m going to call the series Skull Attack, which is a potent local South Wales beer made by a brewer called Brains. The SA beer, which stands for Special Ale, has been nicknamed ‘Brains Skull Attack’ because it’s very strong and that’s what it feels like if you’ve had too much of it.

 

Happy Halloween

 

🙂

Chalk, pen and charcoal drawing: Skull Attack #2.

Skeletons I Have Known [1].

Pastel anatomical drawing: Hand and knee.

 

People who’ve read my blog before will know that I share my studio with a skeleton, a lady called Felicity. But I’ve drawn other skeletons too. This one, nicknamed Fred Skelly, was the subject of many drawings during a life drawing course at Gorseinon College. He was once a man – smaller pelvis, shorter neck – and we often removed his head to get a better look. I did a series of fairly large drawings of bits of him in soft chalky pastels in ochre and olive with a bit of graphite block into a cream, bound Somerset A3 sketchbook. I like drawing from skeletons. It isn’t just about practicing anatomy to get a better understanding of how the human body works to inform my life drawings. I also think the human skeleton is a thing of beauty in it’s own right. I’ve made prints and mixed media work incorporating bits of skeleton and I like having them on my walls. Spooks some people out though!

Pastel drawing: Skeletal knees and feet.

All Day at the Print Studio.

Full colour monotype.

 

Very busy day today at the printmaking studio in Swansea. Made two full-colour monotypes, plus two ‘ghosts’. Have been on my feet for 7.5 hours and I’m shattered, but reasonably happy with the results. I based the monotypes on drawings made from life with a professional model. The prints are made in oil-based pigment in the three process colours, mixed with medium plate oil in a 60:40 ratio and printed onto BFK Rives 250gsm paper from a perspex matrix.

Got to go to a Halloween party now. I think I’m going to sleep in the corner :).

Steampunkery at Mozarts

Ink drawing: A lady in her finery.

It was the first anniversary of the Swansea Steampunk Association Meet this week and there was much jollity with lashings of Earl Grey tea and home-made cake at Mozarts, a faded Victorian club of slightly shabby grandeur. Behind the classical façade is a large entrance hall with a magnificent patterned tiled floor leading to some rather shady backrooms with high ornate ceilings and a mirrored and panelled bar, a carved Victorian fireplace with a large mirror perched on top of it and old winebottles stuffed with dripping candles all over the place.

The eclectic mix of strange Steampunk music was reflected in the diversity of costumes, from authentic Victorian and Edwardian dress to sci-fi steampunkery at it’s most outlandish. I wasn’t able to stay long so just did a few very scribbled drawings. This lady in her finery is bathed in candlelight reflected in the mirror above the fireplace and looks for all the world like she is sitting in some Parisian bar in the late 1800’s, being sketched by the likes of Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas or Manet, not that I would ever compare my scribbles to such awesome artists!

The drawing is in Faber Castell Pitt pen [size S] into a tiny leather-bound sketchbook.

 

Scribbling the Scribblers.

Drawing in ink and conte crayon.

 

Sometimes at life drawing group I get a bit bored drawing the model and I take a look at the rest of the room and draw the drawers. They’re usually as still as the model, deep in concentration which maked them relatively easy to draw. This is done in Faber Castell Pitt ink pens and conte crayon in black and sanguine into an A3 Somerset cream sketchbook. I often incorporate notes into my drawings and occasionally into my final pieces as well. That’s my hand on the far left.

Nice nibbles and a nice cat in NYC.

Ink drawing: The auctioneer at Bloomsbury, NYC.

 

I was at a benefit auction of prints for Manhattan Graphics Studio in Bloomsbury’s auction house, NYC. It was good fun and I was bidding for a lovely piece by Carol Wax. It was at the end of a very long and hard day at the International Print Fair and I was shattered and managed to get a seat at the front, but there was only the auctioneer in front of me so I drew him and he carried on regardless – a real pro!Very up-market nibbles here and the auction raised loads of money, but I was outbid. The drawing is in Faber Castell Pitt pens into my Tate Postcard sketchbook.

We met a lovely cat earlier in the day; the studio cat at Solo Originals gallery – a little chubby Siamese cross, very affectionate. The owner was also very nice and showed us around the studio which had genuine Bavarian litho stones still being used.

Pooped at the Printfair!

Ink sketch: Manhattan at night.

 

A drawing in my Tate Postcard sketchbook from my trip to NYC to see the International Print Fair a couple of years ago. We had been walking around Manhatten for days, going to exhibitions, talks and demonstrations of printmaking and we were pooped! We holed up in this very modernist cafe near the Bloomsbury Auction Rooms, where we were going to a fundraising auction for the Manhatten Graphics Studio and I drank tea and nibbled cake and did this drawing. It combines two hard things – drawing the night and drawing through reflective glass. I could have chosen something easier to draw, like the cafe interior and its customers!!!!!

However, it gave me a reason to break out my Faber Castell Pitt pen set of 6 greyscale brush tips that I hardly ever use. I enjoyed drawing it and I should do more nightime drawing, but once I’m holed up in my little house, I rarely want to go out again.