For many years, life drawing has underpinned my drawing practice. When I was in Swansea Art College, I was lucky enough to have been taught by the wonderful artist Glenys Cour. She imparted a love of life drawing that has lasted many decades. I’ve also been lucky enough to have worked with many wonderful models. This is Natie.
Nephew and I went for a walk up Swansea’s Kilvey Hill / Bryn Cilfai Abertawe this afternoon to lend our support to the campaign to save this lovely nature reserve from insensitive commercial development (more information here). Around 300 people and quite a few dogs and horses made the trek to the summit where there were songs, speeches, poetry, photos and filming, focusing attention on the proposed environmental vandalism. Of course I had to have a few scribbles – here’s one. It’s drawn in graphite and Inktense blocks into a Khadi hand-made paper sketchbook.
I. Am. Sparta Puss.
….that I’m working on at the moment, with Caran d’Ache Neo Pastels into a Khadi sketchbook. More to come ….
Husb and I went to a Seed Talk called “The Science of Psychedelics” by Dr. David Luke at Swansea University yesterday evening. There was a woman in the row in front of me with the most amazing red hair, Cochyn in Welsh, so of course I had to have a scribble. I used my (relatively) new Caran D’Ache NeoPastels. I’ve had them a while and tried them out but not had any success until now.
I admire the pastel work of USA-based artist Aletha M. Kuschan and she advised me to try NeoPastels (NOT the Neo Colour). I gave them a go on a couple of things but I wasn’t happy. I had used them on a very heavily textured hand-made paper, but this time I used a lighter-weight Khadi paper and I love the results. It was easy to blend and overlay them. This sketch took about 10 minutes.
A classic jam and buttercream sponge. With homemade bramble jelly (foraged locally) and real buttercream. The sponge has a hint of vanilla because I embed vanilla pods into my caster sugar jar. It will be going to Husb’s Life Drawing group tomorrow.
Here’s a scribble from an old sketchbook, a walk on Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) on a sunny but misty afternoon about 8 years ago. I used a range of grey pastels mostly on their side into a black ringbound sketchbook.
Here’s the second piece I made on my training course with the most excellent glass artist Lisa Burkl the other day.
Step 1: Paint a design onto the outside of a clean glass bowl with acrylic pens and paints. Leave it to dry.
Step 2: Cover the painted area thinly with glue (it’s a special one for gilding). Leave it to get tacky.
Step 3: Gently smooth a sheet of gilt over the glued area with a soft brush.
Step 4: Turn it over and go “OOOOOOOHHHHH” 😀
It’s #Caturday Saturday and here are some very quick sketches I did a while back of a cat mostly moving, which is rare! I drew speedily to try and capture the cats in action rather than details.
I learnt a new technique today, from inspirational glass artist, Lisa Burkl. It’s gilding onto glass and then drawing into it. I’d never realised this method would suit drawing so much. I’ve been doing a lot of artwork recently about the inspirational South Wales Miner’s Wives of 1984-1985, so I continued that topic here. I had to come up with a design quickly today, so I looked online at the inspirational work of Paul Peter Pieche. The design is maybe a little too close to Pieche’s work, but I can live with that as it’s just a practice piece.
scribblah 