Here are some sketches of the band VAILS, from last weekend at Hangar 18 at this year’s Swansea Fringe. I drew this first one into my rough Khadi sketchbook with a stick of Nitram charcoal.
Then I did some very free sketches into my smooth sketchbook with a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen. These are quick, as there is no time to draw anything other than the essential details. The band, just two musicians, is brilliant!
A couple more sketches from Lurcher‘s performance last weekend at Hangar 18 at this year’s Swansea Fringe. I drew this into my Khadi sketchbook, which is really rough paper, not suitable for pen work but great for my Derwent Inktense blocks.
I scribbled the lines of the body and guitar straight onto the page with the point of a black Inktense block, then went over the lines with a reservoir brush so the water turned the lines to ink. Then I daubed water around the figure and rubbed the wet areas with pink and dark olive green Intense blocks used on the flat side, to give a blocky effect.
I went back to my smooth sketchbook for this drawing. I started with a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen, but it wasn’t working for me, so I switched to a stick of Nitram charcoal and scribbled a very quick one.
Another of the bands at Hangar 18 at this year’s Swansea Fringe, Lurcher‘s bassist’s great expansive movements onstage got me scribbling frantically. At one point I had 3 drawings of him on the go as he moved around so much, I was determined to capture him on paper. It’s unusual to see such a lively bass player!
Celavi was the first band that Husb and I saw this Fringe season, in Hangar 18 and I drew Gwion, who has an extraordinary look, like a Neil Gaiman character interpreted by Dave McKean. The colour theme of the set is vivid pink and black so I used a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen and Inktense blocks in those colours. I wet the paper with a reservoir brush before applying the blocks on their side to get that chunky look, then I worked into the black with my fingers, the textures reflect my experience of the band’s music.
It was the annual Swansea Fringe again this weekend and I immersed myself in Heavy Metal, Rock and Scribbling at a couple of Swansea’s heavier venues. Here’s my first drawing of the Fringe, at Hangar 18, of the singer Sarah from the Bangor-based Nu-Metal band Celavi. She wore this amazing stage outfit of black PVC and pink tulle and I interpreted her with a black Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen, size 0.5, and a pink Inktense block used with a water reservoir brush.
I love drawing at gigs, the music and atmosphere influence me. It’s dark mind, and I can barely see the paper as I draw, and I have to work fast, so it’s a bit of a surprise the next day when I get to see what I’ve scribbled in the daylight.
Husb and I went walking up the mountains a few weeks ago, to Llyn y Fan Fach on Bannau Brycheiniog where I did some fairly detailed work with pastels onto painted paper. But before I started on the bigger pieces, I did a couple of hasty scribbles into my tiny leatherbound sketchbook, to work out what was there in front of me. And then I forgot about them! Here they are. They’re an important part of my arts practice, analysing what’s going on.
They’re very basic, minimalist, but they capture quickly the essential features that need to be recorded. The lake is the site of a Welsh famous legend … here.
I spotted another artist drawing in the room and I drew her. We were both lost in our sketches.
Husb and I went to a memorial celebration for the life of a friend, Professor Jen Wilson, who recently died. There were lovely performances of jazz and blues music, which she had championed all her life and of course, I took the opportunity to have a scribble.
Here’s the last of my Eryri sketches, as we left the mountains on our journey back to the coast and Caernarfon. This vista had an extraordinary bright torrent of waterfall tumbling down the dark rocks, set against a strangely gleaming sky. Husb recorded this short film of me drawing on the little steam train – you can just see me in the reflection in the window. It was a great day out, sketching the chaotic weather from the comfort of the tiny train.
I had been struggling to find a medium and subject that suited my black paper sketchbook and these Sennelier and Daler Rowney soft pastels and the rugged mountains of Eryri are just perfect for it.
Travelling back from Beddgelert on the little steam train, the storm was lifting and although the winds were still high, the rain stopped and a strange light flooded Eryri, backlighting the mountains. I worked very quickly into my black sketchbook with Sennelier and Daler Rowney soft pastels, held on their side flat against the paper, which gives a very definite texture against the smooth surface.
scribblah 