Here’s the second of the monotypes I made during my recent open studio at Swansea Print Workshop, based on sketches I did during my residency in Pakistan last year. The colours of the landscape and sky are marvellous, so bright, atmospheric and changeable. I normally work with the human form, but this wonderful landscape inspired me. This monotype technique relies on expertise in drawing and mark-making. I used cotton buds (Q Tips), cotton rags, scrim (tarlatan) and rough hoghair brushes to get the marks and textures.
I carried on with stages 2 (red) and 3 (blue) of my new monotypes while I was doing the final day of my pop-up studio event at Swansea Print Workshop. Yesterday I posted stage 1 (yellow) for both the first pressing and the second – ghost – pressing. You can see the full set in the slideshow below.
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The monotype was inspired by a car journey through the Punjab during my residency in Pakistan last year. We started in Rawalpindi and drove to Lahore through a spectacular landscape with an ever-changing sky, from brilliant Spring sunshine, to heavy rain, to violent thunder and lightning to giant hailstones and back again. I sat in the car and frantically scribbled into my small square Khadi sketchbook with Daler Rowney Artist’s Soft Oil Pastels.
Completer ‘ghost# monotype
I did 50 drawings, no more than 2 minutes on each. These drawings are the basis of the monotypes I’m doing. You can see the original drawings, with a Pakistani soundtrack, on the video below.
I’ve been carrying on sorting through the pastel drawings I did on my recent residency in Pakistan, tidying some up and spraying them with fixative. Here are the last two of the mountain drawings. I did them with Daler Rowney soft pastels into my Khadi sketchbook. They were done very quickly on a car journey from Lahore to Rawalpindi, just very quick impressions.
I’ve been sorting through the stuff I brought home from my recent residency in Pakistan. I left some of my prints behind in an exhibition at the Satrang Gallery in Islamabad but I also did a lot of drawings and I’ve been photographing and cataloguing them.
I did around half a dozen quick impressionistic sketches at the Rawal Lake in Bani Gala in Islamabad. The sun was setting over the mountains in the distance and the colours were extraordinary. I sat with friends and sipped lemongrass tea as the dusk descended. Then the mosquitos started biting and ruined it all!
I scribbled these with artist quality Daler Rowney soft pastels into a Khadi handmade paper sketchbook. Each sketch took around 4 or 5 minutes, maybe less.
My printmaking residency in Rawalpindi was supported by Wales Arts International and Arts Council Wales.
This is the very last drawing I did on my Pakistan residency. I drew this elderly lady as she slept on the plane journey on the way back from Kuwait, into my little A6 sketchbook using a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen size S.
The residency was supported by Wales Arts International and Arts Council Wales.
Pressure’s on at the Pindi Printshop and the residency artists are working late again. I haven’t done a drawing today *gasp* because I’m working on plate preparation, so I’ll post a picture I took the other evening of the Pakistan Monument in Islamabad which is breathtakingly beautiful. It’s sure to find its way into a print – probably a monotype.
This residency is supported by Wales Arts International and Arts Council Wales
Yeah I know, that’s a cheesy title. But what do you expect from an ageing rock chick??!! In 48 hours I will be in Boise, Idaho, working with a group of artists in Wingtip Press. And I’m getting really nervous now, so I’m checking and double checking my lists and I don’t know how many times I’ve made sure my passport is packed and other obsessive stuff. I’ll be doing loads of drawing when I’m in the USA and I like to draw on pre-coloured paper, so here’s some I prepared earlier. I have a mixture of papers; it’ll be interesting to try out some papers I’ve had for ages and not used before; Bockingford, Arches, Somerset, Aquarelle and WSH. I’ve coloured some of the more robust ones with oil pigment – rhodamine red and yellow ochre – after coating them with gesso first. Others I’ve coated with ink wash and I’ve also included a discarded cyanotype (on Bockingford) that I recycled – that’s the one in the front on the right.
I’m just tying up loose ends here but I’ll probably be faffing around until the last minute and you can bet that once I’m on the coach for Heathrow, I’ll remember something I haven’t packed! I’ll be blogging every day from Boise so you can follow my adventures with rattlesnakes and coyotes. Drawn In The USA is the name of the ‘project’ that I put together for funding from Arts Council Wales, who are contirubuting towards the travel costs.
To visit my online galleries, please click the image to the left.
Women Artists
Click on the image to see my series of silkscreen portraits celebrating great but often neglected women artists and to find out about their fascinating lives.
Swansea prints
To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left. Inspired by drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artefacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife. 20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.
£850 raised for LATCH: The Children’s Cancer Charity
My September painting fundraiser for LATCH, The Children’s Cancer Charity, is now officially over. Thank you to all those who bought paintings and donated. Also to those who shared and cheered from the side-lines.
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