I work for a homelessness charity a few hours a week, teaching fine art. Mostly I don’t get the chance to join in myself, but today I was demonstrating sketching en plein air ao I got stuck in and did a few examples. We were working in the National Waterfront Museum, a lovely place that has kindly given us space to run a course in acrylics. We did some quick thumbnail sketches, focusing on composition and working in ballpoint pens and Liquitex acrylic inks. Here are mine, 2 took five minutes and the third, ten minutes.
Breakfast With Dippy
1 Dec
Went on a family trip to Cardiff today with Husb and two younger relatives, to see Dippy the Diplodocus who is touring the UK. The National Museum in Cardiff had laid on a breakfast viewing, with sausage baps, warm cinammon rolls and squidgy dino-themed cookies. It was grand. We were all excited to see the legendary Dippy and I had to have a scribble, from behind with some severe foreshortening. Lovely stuff.
Dippy is huge! He will be staying in Cardiff at the National Museum until the end of January and it’s free to go and see him.
A Good Night’s Sleep
30 Sep
And here’s my final drawing from last weekend’s special life drawing session at Swansea’s National Waterfront Museum. The models were working in pairs, which I found challenging because there isn’t enough time to work on both, especially in a quite short pose – this one’s 20 minutes.
I used three conté crayons in white, sanguine and black into an A4 spiral bound brown paper sketchbook from Seawhite’s of Brighton.
The drawing event was part of the Now The Hero / Nawr Yr Arwr arts festival which was happening for the past week in Swansea, involving dozens of arts organisations and partners and about 500 individuals – artists, performers, technicians, gardeners, Tibetan Monks, volunteers….. it’s been huge and overwhelming and I think that everyone involved needs a good night’s sleep. From tomorrow, I’ll blog the drawings I did through the promenade performance of “Now The Hero / Nawr Yr Arwr” (click here to read one of the fantastic reviews) and the final event, featuring Tibetan monks, some large horns and the beach.
A Short One, A Long One (life drawings)
28 Sep
Some more life drawings from the session at the National Waterfron Museum last Sunday. The first is a five minute pose, getting in the basic elements that make it recognisable and then just enough time to start on something more complex, some shadows, highlights and slightly more complicated linework from the one- and two-minute poses that had gone before. Then into a 30 minute pose. The short warm-ups hone your perception and you can pitch straight in quickly to develop the drawing without faffing about with preliminaries.
The drawing event was part of the Now The Hero / Nawr Yr Arwr arts festival happening this week in Swansea.
I used three conté crayons in white, sanguine and black into an A4 spiral bound brown paper sketchbook from Seawhite’s of Brighton.
There are loads of art events happening this week, including an excellent exhibition at Swansea Print Workshop, inspired by World War 1 and the work of WW1 artists Frank Brangwyn and Kathe Kollwitz. Below is one of a series of monotypes called The Warrior that I have done while working with one particular model over 10 years and I am one of fifteen artist printmakers showing their work. “Now The Printmakers” is open until Saturday, September 29th, 10.30 – 4.30 at 19a, Clarence Street, Swansea.
A Pair Of Posers
27 Sep
After a few one and two-minute poses at the special life drawing session at the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea last weekend, we moved out of the chilly new ‘Graft’ garden and into the museum where the life models posed for five minutes in pairs. That was far harder to draw than a single person because, well obviously, there’s two of ’em but also you have to consider their spatial relationship to each other. With one model you can just draw the figure without any relationship to anything else and that’s quite acceptable.
The drawing event was part of the Now The Hero / Nawr Yr Arwr arts festival happening this week in Swansea.
I used three conté crayons in white, sanguine and black into an A4 spiral bound brown paper sketchbook from Seawhite’s of Brighton.
There are loads of art events happening this week, including an excellent exhibition at Swansea Print Workshop, inspired by World War 1 and the work of WW1 artists Frank Brangwyn and Kathe Kollwitz. Below is one of a series of monotypes called The Warrior that I have done while working with one particular model over 10 years and I am one of fifteen artist printmakers showing their work. “Now The Printmakers” is open until Saturday, September 29th, 10.30 – 4.30 at 19a, Clarence Street, Swansea.
Another Chilly One
26 Sep
Here’s another one-minute pose I did last weekend at the special life drawing session at the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea, drawn outside in the open air in the new ‘Graft’ garden: CHILLY! Life models are stalwarts, so important to an artist’s practice and rarely acknowledged for the work they do. It isn’t easy. The drawing event was part of the Now The Hero / Nawr Yr Arwr arts festival happening this week in Swansea.
I used three conté crayons in white, sanguine and black into an A4 spiral bound brown paper sketchbook from Seawhite’s of Brighton.
There are loads of art events happening this week, including an excellent exhibition at Swansea Print Workshop, inspired by World War 1 and the work of WW1 artists Frank Brangwyn and Kathe Kollwitz. Below is one of a series of monotypes called The Warrior that I have done while working with one particular model over 10 years and I am one of fifteen artist printmakers showing their work. “Now The Printmakers” is open until Saturday, September 29th, 10.30 – 4.30 at 19a, Clarence Street, Swansea.
Chilly Two
24 Sep
Here’s the second pose I did yesterday evening at the special life drawing session at the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea. The event is part of the Now The Hero / Nawr Yr Arwr arts festival happening over the coming week. This is a one minute pose drawn outside in the ‘Graft’ garden, fair do’s mun, these life models are a hardy bunch.
I used three conté crayons in white, sanguine and black into an A4 spiral bound brown paper sketchbook from Seawhite’s of Brighton.
There are loads of art events happening this week, including an excellent exhibition at Swansea Print Workshop, inspired by World War 1 and the work of WW1 artists Frank Brangwyn and Kathe Kollwitz. Below are some works by John Abell, one of fifteen artist printmakers showing their work. “Now The Printmakers” is open Tuesday to Saturday, September 24th to 29th, 10.30 – 4.30 at 19a, Clarence Street, Swansea.

‘Diary Of A Dead Officer’, a collection of lino prints by John Abell and a hand printed book published by Old Stile Press.
Chilly!
23 SepHad such a lovely evening, doing life drawing at the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea. The event is part of the Now The Hero / Nawr Yr Arwr arts festival happening over the coming week. There was a large group of artists and five life models and we started out in the ‘Graft’ garden, with three short poses from the brave and dedicated models who must have been freezing. It was only 6pm and it’s been sunny all day, but there was a bit of a chill even fully clothed ……
Then we went into the Waterfront Museum, which stayed open late, and worked through til quarter past eight, drawing, drawing, drawing. This is the first pose, just 2 minutes. Short poses really make you focus on quickly capturing the essence of the subject, not the detail and I think they are more lively and dynamic than the longer poses.
I used three conté crayons in white, sanguine and black into an A4 spiral bound brown paper sketchbook from Seawhite’s of Brighton.