I had a little bit left of the Bideford Black paint I made recently. It wasn’t a lot so I tried thinning it down with water and took a fairly wide, flat brush to make stripes across one of the sheets of paper I’d prepared with gesso and walnut ink. The Bideford Black wash broke up on the surfaceContinue reading “Dribbling Bideford Black.”
Tag Archives: Bideford Black
Surrealist Swirls.
I used the Bideford Black paint I made yesterday. I didn’t have any idea what to do. I’m trying to get away from always working representationally and letting my imagination take over. It’s way out of my comfort zone! I took a fairly wide, flat brush and made swirls over one of the sheets ofContinue reading “Surrealist Swirls.”
Bashing Bideford Black.
After coating some sheets of paper with my home-made walnut ink yesterday, I decided to stay with natural pigments and make paint with some lumps of Bideford Black I’ve had lurking in a box for years. I’d made paint with it before, using water (here). This time I mixed it with Nori paste and vodka.Continue reading “Bashing Bideford Black.”
Back in Black
Hello. This is my third podcast and it’s about where the colour black comes from, with a bit about Swansea’s local industrial history thrown in. It is mostly based on the book: Colour Travels Through the Paintbox by Victoria Finlay PURITANS AND PIRATES: Booze and Brothels and the Colour Black Hiya. Rosie Scribblah here. ThisContinue reading “Back in Black”
My Geographic Palette #3 – Walnut Ink
About 3 or 4 years now some friends gave me a bag of fresh walnuts – that’s walnut fruit – the nut is in the centre of an apple sized green fruit. I made my own walnut ink from them, please click here if you want to see the technique I used. Continue reading “My Geographic Palette #3 – Walnut Ink”
My Geographic Palette #2 – Bideford Black
So, day 2 of drawing from my geographic palette. This is Bideford Black, an unique oily carbon-based pigment from North Devon, where is sits in the ground next to anthracite coal. It was mined for about 200 years up until the late 1960s but lost out to cheaper competitors and the mines closed. IContinue reading “My Geographic Palette #2 – Bideford Black”
My Geographic Palette #1 – Charcoal
This is my first tryout with my geographic palette, a drawing based on a sketch I did en plein air on a field trip with colleagues from Swansea University’s FIRE Lab a couple of months ago when we went off exploring culverts up in the Brecon Beacons. The charcoal I bought a fewContinue reading “My Geographic Palette #1 – Charcoal”
My Geographic Palette
I’m thinking about how to develop from the sketches I’ve done on a couple of field trips with colleagues in the FIRE Lab team and, as the research project is about ecosystems and environment, I thought I’d try as much as possible to use natural earths, plants and minerals in my artworks, so I’m puttingContinue reading “My Geographic Palette”
On The Spot
Last Saturday I did some ‘live’ drawing at an art event at Volcano in Swansea’s High Street. My young nephew posed for the best part of 2 hours but he was happy as Larry playing games on my phone. I worked inside the building and drew onto translucent drafting film with carbon, Bideford BlackContinue reading “On The Spot”
Making Mistakes
I did something unusual at the weekend. Fellow artist Claudia Mollzahn was holding an art event at Volcano theatre in Swansea’s High Street and offered me window space to develop something over two hours. I’ve had some translucent drawing film on a roll knocking around the place for ages so I decided toContinue reading “Making Mistakes”