After coating some sheets of paper with my home-made walnut ink yesterday, I decided to stay with natural pigments and make paint with some lumps of Bideford Black I’ve had lurking in a box for years. I’d made paint with it before, using water (here). This time I mixed it with Nori paste and vodka. It was much thicker than the previous water-based one. I’m going to use it on top of the walnut ink paper.
I prepped some paper yesterday with gesso and my home-made walnut ink. I have to be careful with the ink as I am allergic to walnuts, proper anaphylactic stuff, so plastic gloves, mask and lots of ventilation are needed when I’m spreading it onto the paper. It seems ok to work with when it’s dry though. It’s quite smelly because it contains 20% surgical spirits (rubbing alcohol) to preserve it as it’s organic and grows mould without the alcohol.
The ink is made from the husks, the fruit around the actual walnut and gives a beautiful, colour-fast sepia ink. You can read how to make walnut husk ink here in one of my previous blog posts.
This blog has always been about my art practice but I don’t often post about the tools I use. And of course these underpin everything I do. Here’s a selection of brushes, some for watercolours and inks, some for acrylic paint. I don’t use oil paints. The toothbrush is for splatter and the feather – well I don’t know. It looks good in the pot 😀
Just a quick little scribble in a cafe, took about a minute with a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen into my tiny leather-bound sketchbook.
It’s #StandingStoneSunday and here’s one I did earlier lol 😀 It’s a stone that lives in a small community on the North-East fringe of Swansea, in Bonymaen. The Welsh name of the area means the “base of the stone” and there’s a legend that it’s one end of a vast stone that travels under the city and pops up again in the Gower village of Penmaen, which means “head of the stone”. Although there isn’t a standing stone in Penmaen, there are some ancient stone monuments.
It’s #Caturday Saturday and here’s a blast from the past. Sparta Puss from 10 years ago, drawn in pen into a small sketchbook. She’s sitting on an old glass-fronted cabinet that Husb and I rescued from the street. There’s a cyanotype I did of Husb on her left.
Here’s a short (2 minute) “How To” film from a recent session I ran at GS Artists in Swansea, as part of their 9to90 Community Arts programme. It was a simple still-life in acrylic paints. The film shows how I started with a couple of basic drawing techniques and then took a look at some examples of still-life paintings of my own before moving on to getting stuck into the painting.
I really love the 9to90 Community Arts programme, it’s rare to have free public art sessions that include many people who might not normally go into art galleries. Jane Simpson and her colleagues at GS Artists have made the gallery so welcoming and informal. The film was shot and edited by Melvyn Williams and is narrated and sub-titled in English.
And the last of the legs from the Punk and Metal evening at Elysium Gallery bar the other evening, where I stood and scribbled into my tiny leather-bound sketchbook until the urge to jump around got too strong. I’ve been looking down and drawing legs at gigs a couple of times now, easier when you’re a bit squished. I used a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen and Nitram charcoal stick.
Some more legs from the Elysium Gallery bar the other evening, where Husb and I attended a concert, a musical evening of Punk and Metal. Let’s be honest, I’m too old for a mosh pit, I’m likely to end up with something broken so I like to stand somewhere a bit safer and scribble into my tiny leather-bound sketchbook. When you’re in a crowd though, it’s a tight fit and poor visibility so I’ve been getting into the habit of looking down and drawing legs. I used a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen and Nitram charcoal stick.
Husb and I were at the Elysium Gallery bar the other evening, for an evening of raucous Punk and Metal, really LOUD! Loved it. I took my tiny leather-bound sketchbook into the audience, there wasn’t much room to draw so I scribbled the legs around me. I did that at another gig a few weeks ago and I’m really getting into it. I drew with a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen and Nitram charcoal stick.
scribblah 