#StandingStoneSunday: The Sketchbook Stones

Ty’n Y Selar.

When I was travelling around South Wales studying standing stones with pre-historian Dewi Bowen and filmmaker Melvyn Williams, I generally worked onto large sheets of prepared paper. But sometimes I travelled light with just a brown paper sketchbook and it gave me a different insight into what I was drawing, I focused more on the decorative aspects of the subject.

This stone is Ty’n Y Selar and it’s sited near the ancient community of Margam in Neath Port Talbot, overlooked by the very busy and noisy M4 motorway. I drew with conte crayons in white, black and sanguine.

#Caturday: The Golden One.

It’s #Caturday Saturday once again and I’ve been playing with a picture of Sparta Puss in Adobe Photoshop. I put the photo through a Coloured Pencil filter and then cranked up the Saturation to create this golden effect.

Teaching Watercolour Basics

I did some more adult teaching this week, I’m running a short course in watercolour basics, covering a range of simple and accessible techniques. The group started with stretching some watercolour paper with paper gumstrip (learnt last week), sectioning it up with masking tape and producing 4 samples of different techniques. This is the demonstration one I did, using coarse salt, rice, cling film and aluminium foil. It’s frustrating that we all have to wait until next week to see how they turn out when they’re dry!

Wet watercolour with scrunched-up cling film.

I’ve used Winsor & Newton’s Cotman half pan colours onto a heavy Bockingford paper.

Archive Life Drawing: 1

I’ve been browsing through some of my archives and seeing loads of work I’d forgotten about. This is from 10 years ago, working with an older male model, John. I went through a brief phase of drawing onto collaged paper and mixing up my drawing materials – charcoal, conte crayon and oil bars. I don’t know why I stopped working like this. Looking back I really quite like it.

Unplanned Scraping.

Scraping On The Pinks.

I carried on with the nocturne painting by scraping on some pinks with a palette knife. It wasn’t planned, I had some Titanium White, Medium Magenta and Dioxazine Violet left over from another painting and as always, “waste not, want not”. I’m not sure if the colour will make it though to the final piece but it will add to the texture and give richness and depth to the colour.

A close up of the texture.

I’m using Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic paint onto a recycled textured stretched canvas with a metal Daler Rowney palette knife.

Slapping It On …..

A painting in progress with 7 multi-coloured bottles on a dark background which is blue for the bottom third and purple at the top.
Lots of paint going on.

I carried on with the still life painting I started a couple of weeks ago. I’m really enjoying this, I’m not being precious about it so I can just slap the paint on without stressing about it, impasto style. If I don’t like what I’ve done, I’ll just paint over it. It’s gradually building up into something resembling the original.

I’m using Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic paint onto a canvas board, although I began the painting in Daler Rowney System 3 acrylic ink.

#StandingStoneSunday.

A drawing of the ancient monument Arthur's Stone in shades of white, black, browns and rust colours.
Crazy Marks.

It’s Standing Stone Sunday on social media again and I’ve chosen a strange little drawing I did of a relatively local monument, Maen Ceti (Arthur’s Stone) at Cefn Bryn on the Gower Peninsula. It’s a huge magnificent megalith in beautiful countryside and it’s easy to get distracted and concentrate on the surroundings when I’m drawing or painting. This time I made a conscious decision to do something different and played around with making interesting marks. I started with a piece of paper prepared with gesso and my homemade walnut ink and build on that background with conte crayons in black, white and sanguine.

If you want to see more of my standing stone art, please browse my digital gallery here.

Friday Night at the Patti.

A couple in the dark.

Husb and I went to a gig last night, The Beat at the Patti Pavilion, a beautiful old venue on the seafront that had put on gigs all through the 1970s. Friday nights at the Patti are a fond memory of my youth and I saw some wonderful bands there. The gigs have been resumed after a gap of about 40 years! Of course I had to have a scribble.

A sketch of two people, a man and a woman, leaning into each other to talk at a concert. The figures are very dark and set within a dark room.

Double Vision.

Two words printed in antique letterpress, with shadow letters behind them. The words are printed in two colours using a rainbow roll technique.
Typeface Doubled Up.

I tried this neat trick with the two letterpress pieces I did recently at Swansea Print Workshop. After the first print, I moved the paper slightly and put it back through the press and it picked up the ghost from the remaining ink on the wooden blocks.

Grrrr!!

A typeface form showing the word Grrr in reverse in different sized vintage wooden typefaces has been inked with blue and red, and the print of it is shown on white paper.
Giving It Some GRRRR!!

I played around with Letterpress again at Swansea Print Workshop this week. Last week I did a piece using Intaglio Printmaker’s relief inks and this week tried out Cranfield Caligo Safewash, both times using a rainbow roll. I found little to choose between them, to be honest. The Safewash is slightly runnier and less sticky which gives softer edges but it’s also much easier to clean up.

Mixed typefaces.

I used a combination of different type from the “odds’n’sods” draw, leftover letters that don’t belong anywhere else. I love these vintage and antique wooden blocks, they have so much character, they’ve lived a life and the little nicks and worn bits are so much more interesting to me than brand new perfect ones …. or computer generated.