Derwent Inktense – scribblah

A View Of Kilvey / Cilfai.

I posted a few days ago about Kilvey Hill / Bryn Cilfai, the iconic landscape that looms over the city from wherever you look. When I was a kid, it was a bare, desolate industrial wasteland. In my lifetime it has been reclaimed by nature, with help from Swansea University and thousands of local adultsContinue reading “A View Of Kilvey / Cilfai.”

A Walk Up The Hill ….

Nephew and I went for a walk up Swansea’s Kilvey Hill / Bryn Cilfai Abertawe this afternoon to lend our support to the campaign to save this lovely nature reserve from insensitive commercial development (more information here). Around 300 people and quite a few dogs and horses made the trek to the summit where thereContinue reading “A Walk Up The Hill ….”

Swansea Fringe 2023: Rock Foxes 2.

Some more sketches the very loud and very entertaining punk band Rock Foxes at the Swansea Fringe last weekend at Crowley’s Rock Bar. There’s some terrific banter between the band members. When I’m speed sketching, there’s usually only enough time to get an impression of what’s before me, especially with rock bands who tend to be moving aContinue reading “Swansea Fringe 2023: Rock Foxes 2.”

The Rediscovered Sketchbook.

Sometimes I put a sketchbook down and forget about it for months or even years. I don’t know why I do it, some of them just seem to fall out of favour or maybe a I fall in love with the novelty of a new one. This little leather-clad book is one of these. IContinue reading “The Rediscovered Sketchbook.”

Old And New

Here’s another sketch I did on holiday in Porto, Portugal last week. It was very hot (for me anyway) and Husb and I took refuge in the beautiful Crystal Palace garden near our little hotel. There was loads to sketch there but I settled on this view of an old statue, probably 19th century, inContinue reading “Old And New”

Strange Trees In The Dark.

I was so taken with the odd pollards in the Porto park, Jardim da Cordoaria, that I went back the next evening with my landscape Khadi sketchbook and Derwent Inktense blocks and spent a while drawing the strange trees in a mix of natural night-time darkness and harsh orange/yellow street lighting.

The Columbian

I had a quick scribble this afternoon, trying out a mixture of white conté crayon (used dry) and black Derwent Inktense (used wet) into a black paper sketchbook. The white worked well, but the black Inktense was lost and it made a bit of a mess with the white conté. So I went back inContinue reading “The Columbian”

Having A Doodle

Having a bit of a play with my Inktense blocks by Derwent onto black paper. I wanted to see if they would actually show up on a dark background and they did, really strong coverage too. I was just having a doodle, it’s not meant to look like anything.

#FungiFriday

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 limitedContinue reading “#FungiFriday”

Noodling …..

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 hisContinue reading “Noodling …..”