The Duke’s Legs Akimbo in Brighton

  Taking a break for a few days in Brighton, we went to see The Guard, hilariously funny film, at The Duke of York’s Picturehouse. It’s an independent cinema built in 1910 in a rather over-the-top Victorian style; one of those buildings that looks like a wedding cake, all white and stuccoed and covered withContinue reading “The Duke’s Legs Akimbo in Brighton”

Hot Rods, Velocettes and The Yellow Submarine.

  We’re having a few days away on the English South coast in a very typical small seaside town with some friends and this very sunny morning we wandered down to a field by the seafront to a festival of vintage and custom motorbikes and cars, with leather-clad bikers, heavy rock bands and ………. theContinue reading “Hot Rods, Velocettes and The Yellow Submarine.”

Going Over To The Dark Side: Experimenting with Acrylic Paint.

Acrylic sketch: Theresa in jeans. I’m not a natural born painter – I like scribbling and printmaking but I’ve recently been going over to the dark side and experimenting with paint, with varying success. Watercolours and Oils are a joy to work with and I’ve had one attempt at using Gouache, which I quite liked.Continue reading “Going Over To The Dark Side: Experimenting with Acrylic Paint.”

Ink Sketching: Letting Sleeping Cats Lie.

Cats are not easy to draw but at least they spend long hours completely immobile – fast asleep. I take advantage and get some sketching done. It’s doubly hard with Sparta because she also has very distinctive markings so drawings have to be accurate or they don’t look like her. This is a page inContinue reading “Ink Sketching: Letting Sleeping Cats Lie.”

Total Artgeek – Soft Pastels: Portrait of an Elder Man

  I don’t often do portraits, preferring nudes and cats, but I’ve been trying harder to get a likeness over the past year because it’s good discipline and forces me to be not only very observant but also very accurate, which feeds into my professional development. This is John, a life model I often workContinue reading “Total Artgeek – Soft Pastels: Portrait of an Elder Man”

Mixing It: Print, Drawing, Collage

  I was editioning a block print of a head of an elderly man developed from a drawing from my trip to Pakistan a few years ago and had a bit of printers ink left over so I tried printing the block onto odd bits of paper I had around the place. I had aContinue reading “Mixing It: Print, Drawing, Collage”

Two Drawings of the Third Kitten of the Apocalypse

Our dear old tomcat, Bola, died in August two years ago when he was nearly twenty years old. He was a great big black panther of a moggy with the sweetest nature. We had our two younger ones, Bobbit and Ming the Merciless and decided that we wouldn’t have any more kitties. No-one could takeContinue reading “Two Drawings of the Third Kitten of the Apocalypse”

Rampant Paper-Geekery [parental guidance suggested]

I spent Saturday at Swansea Print Workshop [www.swanseaprintworkshop.org.uk] developing a large piece of artwork which was based on a drawing I did at life drawing group, working with a professional model. I went in again this morning to finish it off. The technique I use is three-colour reduction monotype – for the uninitiated, that’s likeContinue reading “Rampant Paper-Geekery [parental guidance suggested]”

Man and Boy on a Seashore Safari; Big Bikes at the Ice Cream Parlour

I carry a small sketchbook and a pack of four Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens, sizes S, F, M and B in black and I’m always scribbling. The most difficult is drawing on the move, trying to capture spontaneous moments of life in a few seconds. This fleeting sketch was done two summers ago whenContinue reading “Man and Boy on a Seashore Safari; Big Bikes at the Ice Cream Parlour”

Chelsea’s Chocolate Cake and Jet Lag in the USA

  I love to make cakes; it’s one of the ways I relax. I don’t particularly like eating cake but I love to feed it to other people. Lots of people ask me to make cakes for them and it’s great to go off into the kitchen and concentrate for an hour or so, breathingContinue reading “Chelsea’s Chocolate Cake and Jet Lag in the USA”