Here’s another sketch I did at GS Artists last week, at one of the Friday art clubs organised by the indefatigable artist Jane Simpson for the 9 to 90 art community. People from all walks of life pop in to try out different art and craft techniques. If you’re in Swansea on Friday afternoons, come along and have a look. It’s free and there’s tea and cake too,
I started this painting a while back, from a photograph of two grown-up siblings on the beach back in the summer with a driftwood fire. It’s taken lots of layers of paint, doing a bit of work and then returning to it, again and again, the siblings emerging more and more with each layer of paint. They’re almost fully emerged now, I think maybe just one or two sessions should have it finished.
I’m using Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic paints, mostly transparent and translucent, onto a recycled canvas.
Husb and I have been making a Mari Lwyd from a flat pack kit for a while now. Quite a while, we began it during the first Covid lockdown!!! The past couple of weeks I’ve been down at Swansea Print Workshop printing some of the costume with one of my Mari Lwyd lino blocks and earlier today we put it all together and took her for her first outing, to a Plygain in a local community centre. She’s HUGE!
The flat-pack Mari Lwyd, designed by David Pitt, is available from the Welsh educational company TRAC.
It’s #StandingStoneSunday again and here’s one of my favourites, Maen Llia, a huge megalith near Ystradfellte in the Brecon Beacons National Park. Legend has it that the stone sometimes moves to the nearby River Mellte to drink ….
I did this when I was travelling across South Wales with pre-historian Dewi Bowen and filmmaker Melvyn Williams, making art while Dewi researched his soon-to-be-published new book, featuring the tale of Y Twrch Trwyth (The Boar Hunt) from the Mabinogion.
It’s #Caturday / Saturday again and here’s a photo of a much younger Sparta Puss that I’ve put through Adobe Photoshop’s Palette Knife filter. She’s always been a cutie.
I did some scribbling in GS Artists this afternoon, at the weekly community art club, the “9to90 Creative Community“. It’s open to anyone in the area and provides an afternoon of free arts and crafts in a lovely atmosphere. Of course, I had to have a scribble…. and a few Jaffa Cakes ……
Here’s another drawing I did last weekend at a poetry fundraiser for Harry’s Fund at Elysium. This woman was sitting in a squished way so was very interesting to draw. It took a while to get it right. I used the continuous line method but kept stopping to look because her angles didn’t seem quite right and her shoes had unfeasibly thick soles!
I started cutting many little lino blocks way back in the pandemic lockdown. I was recording phrases that summed up what we were going through, but after a while it became so depressing that I had to give up. It’s taken a long time to feel able to go back to them, some of them remind me of awful times , but I really want to do this work. So today, at Swansea Print Workshop, I began to print them up onto small pieces of fabric. It was okay, I didn’t get the negative reaction that I’ve had when I tried to return to this topic before. I used Speedball fabric ink onto a fine cotton.
I went to a poetry reading at Elysium the other day. It’s not like me, I’m not usually a fan of poetry. But these were by local poet David Hughes and I really like his work. It isn’t pretentious and bourgeois, it’s down to earth, relatable and often fun. The poems were performed by a group of actors and that added immeasurably to the enjoyment. The event was a fundraiser for Harry’s Fund, a very good cause in memory of young Harry Patterson.
Here’s a cool film of Swansea Market traders reciting one of David’s poems.
Here’s Maen Bradwen, or Carreg Bica on Mynydd Drummau Mountain in Neath Port Talbot. It’s a massive stone and local legend has it that it bathes in the River Neath / Afon Nedd on Easter morning. I did this while I was travelling around South Wales with filmmaker Melvyn Williams and prehistorian Dewi Bowen while he was researching material for his latest book.
I did three drawings of Carreg Bica in all, two were drawn directly onto prepared Fabriano paper that had been coated with gesso and then covered randomly with my own home-made walnut ink. I quickly sketched the basic details with a white conté crayon and then worked into it with Daler Rowney soft pastels (artist quality). It’s important to use the best quality materials when making work for sale to minimise the possibility of the it fading over the years. I also drew a quick sketch into my A4 brown paper sketchbook with black, white and sanguine conté crayons.
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