A Work In Progress.

I’m working on a small portrait of a famous person for a teaching session I’m doing tomorrow ….. acrylic paint onto recycled canvas.

A Face In The Crowd.

Sometimes you see a face and you’ve just got to sketch it. This guy was at The Jexit gig at The White Lion in Aberdare last week, grooving to the band. A face full of character.

Finished Mari Lwyd lino prints.

I finished cutting my latest Mari Lwyd lino block, I’ve been doing one each winter for a few years now. I did the proof print a few days ago and I did a little bit more cutting, not much, and now I’m happy with the block so I’ve done the first few prints off it, most of them with chine collé.  

I used lightweight tissues and metal foil (from sweets / candies) and a Pritt glue stick to apply the chine collé. I took the prints with a traditional Japanese baren using Cranfield Safe-Wash Relief ink in black onto Japanese HoSho paper.

More Japanese JAM ….

Here’s another sketch from Aberdare last Friday on a cold Welsh Winter night with torrential rain. I’d gone to see a Japanese Jam cover band, The Jexit, perform at The White Lion, with my mate. It was a fantastic gig. The lead singer Yoshi Tokio had flown in from Japan a few days before but the rest of the band are based in the UK.

A quick warm up sketch.

I couldn’t see the most excellent drummer, Simon Wagstaff, from where I was sitting but I had a good view of Rob Fellows, the really cool bassist and vocalist.

A Japanese JAM Tribute Band in Aberdare.

My final sketch of 3 of the lead singer, getting into my stride.

My pal and I went up to Aberdare, proper up the Valleys, on a cold Friday night in torrential rain (luckily she was driving, not me) to see a Japanese Jam cover band, The Jexit, perform at the small but perfectly formed local pub The White Lion. Of course, I had to have a scribble. I started a new sketchbook too, a very tasty black clothbound A5 number with some embossing in gold on the front.

On the left, my first warm-up, sketch and my second scribble on the right.

I’m not a huge fan of The Jam, to be honest, but this band ROCKED the place – absolutely outstanding. These sketches are of the lead singer Yoshi Tokio, who was fantastic. They were all fantastic.

Mari Lwyd: First Proofs With Chine Collé

1st proof – top, 2nd proof with chine collé – bottom.

I printed up a first proof from my latest Mari Lwyd lino block and then did a second proof with chine collé, using fine coloured tissue papers. I cut and ripped some tissue paper shapes than placed them on the un-inked block, just to see if they were what I wanted and where I was going to put them. Then I inked the block (Cranfield Safe Wash relief ink).

Next, working VERY quickly, I covered the BACK of the tissue pieces with glue from a solid stick (Pritt) and placed them STICKY SIDE UP onto the inked block – this bit is tricky because everything is sticky – the tissue, the ink and my fingers! Then I put my printing paper onto it and took a print using a traditional bamboo Japanese baren.

The Mari Lwyd, which is a life-size puppet made with a horse’s skull, is traditionally decorated with flowers, ribbons and bells.

A few weeks ago I did a short online art course, the Saturday Sketch Club with the Royal Academy of Arts. The session was about drawing from the imagination with the artist Emyr Williams. It was so good for me because it’s something I just don’t normally do, I like to work from life.

In this exercise I placed 4 dots onto the paper, roughly in the position of two eyes, tip of the nose and mouth. Next I scribbled randomly across the paper without taking the pencil off it. Then I started emphasising and filling in areas to represent the features of a face, using the lines that are there, not making new ones. I like doing this, it looks like something that could be developed into machine embroidery.

Seeing What’s Happening Again…

I’m cutting a second Mari Lwyd lino block for this week’s adult teaching session with the 9-to-90 Creative Community at GS Artists. Once again I checked how my block was coming along with a piece of tracing paper over it, rubbed hard with a block of graphite and I now have a better idea of what else I need to cut. It’s nearly there.

Blast From The Past: Life Drawing.

I’ve been going through my art cupboards and drawers sorting out tools, materials, storing old work properly, boring but necessary. I found this old life drawing that had lost its sketchbook (size A3). I used to draw like this all the time, using Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens, enhanced with graphite blocks. I guess this could be about 15 years ago.

A Bit More Kitty Fun.

I had some fun with Photoshop yesterday, for #Caturday, but I didn’t want to stop so after I produced the greyscale image I whacked it through a Gradient Map to get this hot version.

And today I made a pear and chocolate upside-down sponge cake for Sunday Tea. Husb and I had it hot with some vegan cream drizzled over it.