I’ve got lots of photos of the sketches I do at gigs and out and about, but none of me actually drawing. So I asked Husb to take some. Here I am during the Swansea Fringe a few weeks ago, tucked away in corners. I really get in the zone.
It’s #StandingStoneSunday again on social media and here’s one in a field near Pontyberem in Carmarthenshire. Click here to read more about this magnificent monuent.
I drew it on my adventures with pre-historian Dewi Bowen and filmmaker Melvyn Williams a few years back, in the days before the Covid lockdown. All the megaliths on our travels are connected to the tale, Y Twrch Trwyth (The Boar Hunt) in The Mabinogion, the Welsh book of myth and legend.
It’s Saturday / Caturday again and here’s another from my cat drawing archives, our youngest, Sparta Puss, aka Sparty Pants, Spartsy and Tyrant. She’s drawn with conte crayons in black, white and sanguine into a brown paper sketchbook.
I did a group session at Swansea Print Workshop a few weeks ago, with other printmakers. We worked in two techniques, linocut and collagraph, and made tiny blocks and plates using a collection of local fungi as our inspiration. I drew mine in pencil and Inktense blocks.
Then we printed them up into a limited edition onto one large piece of paper – 25 blocks in all. We did enough for each participating artist to have one, and a couple left over for the Print Workshop collection.
The session was led by two wonderful printmakers, Sarah Hopkins and Sameera Khan. We did it all in a day, from scratch, thanks to their expertise.
My teenage nephew is staying over, he’s a music student and I wanted to do some sketching with him. I’ve been doing a lot of scribbling at gigs recently but there’s not enough time to really focus on details like hands and the position and the foreshortening of the instruments. As he “noodled” with his guitar on the settee, we chatted about what we were doing and realised we were following more or less the same process, trying out different things with our instruments, messing around to see what would happen, improvising. Living my best life!!!!!!!xxxxx
I’m using Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens, Derwent Inktense blocks with a reservoir brush, into a Moleskin sketchbook. I took liberties with the perspective on this, to see what would happen. It has possibilities.
Sometimes when I’m sketching at a gig, the music influences me more than at other times, like when I did this one at the recent Swansea Fringe. The movements of the guitarist in Two Til Twelve and the music got me scribbling manically, more so than usual. I really got into the zone with my pen on paper.
These very quick sketches are from the first night I drew at this year’s Swansea Fringe, at Crowley’s Rock Bar. I find it’s good practice to rattle off some very quick scribbles at the beginning of a drawing session, to warm up. I suppose it’s like a singer doing scales in the dressing room or a sportsperson doing stretches.
Here’s another sketch I did at Swansea Fringe the other week, of one of the musicians in the most excellent band, Ria Plays. She wore black, in a black venue on a black stage and I drew in the dark. I guess I’m a bit of a masochist when it come to my art 🙂 I did a very quick sketch in ballpoint pen then worked into it with Derwent Inktense blocks and a water reservoir brush.
Problem with working in the dark is that it’s hard to judge the intensity of the colours and a lot of the musicians I sketched with the Inktense blocks turned out yellow! Ah well, they’re ready for a cameo on The Simpsons 😀
This guy had everything – tattoos, drums and red hair. Great to draw. Not easy though, because he’s a vigorous drummer and his arms were a blur most of the time. That’s a challenge for me, do I capture a split second in time, as I have here or do I use some technique to show rapid movement, like Marcel Duchamp‘s painting “Nude Descending A Staircase” (below)?
If I was to develop something from my drawings and photographs, like a painting or linocut, I might be more considered and design some way of expressing movement, but in the crazy atmosphere of a live rock gig, I think I’ll just leave it there. This is one of over 30 sketches I did at this year’s Swansea Fringe.
Here’s another Swansea Fringe sketch from last weekend’s after-party. Drummers are often shoved to the back and it’s hard to get a good line of sight to draw them, but “False Hope For The Savage” gave their drummer plenty of space – so much energy and a lot of fun to draw.
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