#StandingStoneSunday 17

Parc y Meirw, Pembs.

It’s #StandingStoneSunday again and here’s a gate stone in a place called Parc Y Meirw (Field of the Dead) that I visited a while back with Dewi Bowen and Melvyn Williams. Sometimes ancient stones can be found in hedges and used as gateposts and this is one of a group in a hedge that aligns with the moon’s highest point in the sky, which happens every 18.6 years; this cycle can be used for predicting eclipses.

I drew with conte crayon, carbon and Daler Rowney artists’ soft pastels onto Fabriano paper prepared with gesso, charcoal and my home-made walnut ink.

#Caturday Archives 15

Scratching those curtains.

It’s #Caturday / Saturday again. Once upon a time, Sparta Puss was a little kitten. A naughty little kitten. And small enough to run up the curtains. One day, I caught her soft-furnishing shenanigans on camera as she clawed her way up and down some voiles with a spiral pattern. I made a series of woodcut prints from some of the photos – this is the first of the set.

It May Be Finished!

The Girl In The Fly Agaric Hat.

I think this little painting may be just about finished. I’ll sleep on it, but I don’t think I’ll be doing much more, maybe a little softening on the arm. I’ve never done anything like this before, working directly from a sketch and splashing paint randomly in layers, scattering rice into pools of watery pigment, and finally a very small amount of detailing. I used Liquitex Heavy Body acrylics in Indian Yellow, Naphtha Red and Phthalo Blue (red shade) for most of the painting, with some small touches of Dioxazine Purple and Titanium White, which is more of an ecru, at the end.

I might just soften this arm a little.

Here are the steps I went through to get here ….

Going Psychedelic!

Three transparent glazes.

I’ve swirled a final watery paint layer onto my two girls – this time in Pthalo Blue (red shade) from Liquitex, tipping the canvas so the paint ran across randomly. I dabbed at parts with a paper kitchen towel to reveal the yellows, reds and oranges beneath and threw more rice onto it, forming a sort of halo around the girls.

It’s psychedelic, which is very fitting as one of them is wearing a fly agaric mushroom hat – it has a reputation as a psychedelic substance – but it’s potentially dangerous too. This random approach to applying paint is reminiscent of some of the techniques the Surrealists used.

Detail showing the texture of the rice.

Layering Transparency.

Randomness.

After laying down a translucent ground of Indian Yellow acrylic paint (Liquitex Heavy Body), I brushed some watered down transparent Naphthol Red (a hot, bright red) and tipped the canvas so it formed runs and drips across the yellow areas. As an experiment I threw some grains of rice across it to see what would happen, I want to get random textures instead of a uniform, smooth surface.

So where do I go from here?

The Start Of A Painting.

Girl In The Magic Mushroom Hat.

I did a sketch at a fundraising event last week and I like it so much that I’m going to have a bash at making a painting from it. I don’t normally paint from sketches, although I often develop printmaking projects from my sketchbooks, so I’m going to have to approach this in a very different way, I think. I scanned and printed it at size A4 and transferred it to a reclaimed canvas.

I started by roughly painting on an Indian Yellow base colour in Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic. I can see the texture of the old painting underneath and some bits of the original show through like ghosts. Now …. where to go from here?

#StandingStoneSunday 16

Drawing Saint Elfys (Elvis) burial chamber.

It’s #StandingStoneSunday again and here’s a drawing I made during a 2 day trip to Pembrokeshire to draw more ancient Neolithic monuments on my quest across South Wales with Rhondda-born archaeologist Dewi Bowen and Swansea film maker Melvyn Williams, hunting the wild megalith, accompanied by my portable drawing board, portfolio of Fabriano paper and a bag full of assorted artist’s materials.

The first stone we came to is the burial chamber of Saint Elfys (Elvis). It’s near Saint David’s which is not too far from the Preseli Mountains. Elfys Preseli. Hmmmm! I wonder if Elvis Presley had Welsh ancestors?

A detail of St. Elfys stone.

Dewi was researching his latest book on Neolithic monuments, which is nearly finished, and Melvyn made a documentary film of our literary and artistic adventures.

#Caturday Archives 14

Sparta Puss supports the nurses.

I painted this portrait of Sparta Puss way back in lockdown, for my window art gallery. Back then, the speech bubble said “Stay Safe”. I thought I’d update it, painted out the original slogan and painted in Sparta’s support for our nurses, currently striking for fair pay. Throughout the first lockdown, we took to the streets to clap the NHS workers. And that included many politicians, including the then Prime Minister. But where are those politicians now? Clapping costs nothing of course!

The Cat’s Eyes…

Rough and Irritating.

Painting My Niece.

I’m working on my niece’s eyes and I’m now finding it difficult because the canvas is rough and it’s hard to control my brushstrokes. I only re-started painting again, after a 4 decade break, at the beginning of lockdown in Spring 2020, and I’d forgotten how irritating canvas can be. But it’s a challenge and I find painting on paper even more irritating … too smooth! 😀

Getting Down To The Details.

Close up with a fine brush.

I’ve been working on a painted portrait of my great-niece for a while now. I pick it up and put it down and leave it for a while. I’ve gone through many stages of underpainting and now I’ve started working on the fine details. Still a fair amount of work to do, but I think I’m on the final straight now.

Here’s one of the stages of underpainting. It looks horrible, like something from Halloween, and she had a fit when she saw it lol 😀

The “Halloween” underpainting.