A Tissue Issue

Workibng with Kelly Stewart at Swansea Print Workshop last week, I experimented with different ways to screenprint my range of drawings. I’ve always liked the chine collé technique especially with handmade paper made from recycled saris. I get it from the haberdashers in Swansea Market and it has a great texture and a some juicyContinue reading “A Tissue Issue”

Things My Nana Used To Say…

  Here’s another of the small silkscreen prints I did recently. It’s a combination of several images – a heron, a cockchafer (melonontha melonontha) and a violet ground beetle (carabus violaceus) – that I had drawn from Swansea Museum’s archive collection, and they’re overlaid onto a piece of text. I was working with a groupContinue reading “Things My Nana Used To Say…”

Birds And Bugs, Rubbish And Rugby

I’ve just finished an exhausting three days working with Edinburgh-based Australian artist Kelly Stewart to develop a boxed set of small screenprints based on drawings we did from the Swansea Museum archives – taxidermy birds and invertebrates. I also included some imagery based on rubbish – the sort that ends up in our rivers andContinue reading “Birds And Bugs, Rubbish And Rugby”

Birds And Bugs

  I spent yesterday drawing at Swansea Museum with a group of artists led by Edinburgh-based artist Kelly Stewart. It was arranged by Swansea Print Workshop who worked with staff from the Museum stores to select antique taxidermy specimens from their collection – a range of birds and bugs. I drew herons, a hawk, cockchafersContinue reading “Birds And Bugs”

A Greenfinch In Stages

  Here’s a little greenfinch I drew recently, a stuffed one, very old and fragile. I took photos of the different stages of development using conté crayons into my A4 spiral bound brown paper sketchbook. I used the white first, then sanguine and finally black.     I spent a day drawing with a groupContinue reading “A Greenfinch In Stages”

Bitterns And Stripes

I think I’m falling for those crazy bitterns. I couldn’t take my eyes of them at a recent drawing day at Swansea Museum, they’re awesome….. I used my Issabey brushes and my home-made walnut ink into a Khadi sketchbook, using the double spread. I focussed on the shape of the group, doing a sort ofContinue reading “Bitterns And Stripes”

Crazy Bittern

  I’d never seen a bittern before and didn’t even know they existed until I came across this crazy-looking one the other day. He’s stuffed, unfortunately, which may be why he looks a bit mad. I spent a day drawing with a group of artists at Swansea Museum, organised by Swansea Print Workshop and theContinue reading “Crazy Bittern”

The Finished Piece

It’s been a couple of weekends since I did the screenprint book course at Swansea Print Workshop with Kelly Stewart and I just realised that I didn’t blog about the finished piece. Well, here it is: the front above…… ….. and the back below, showing the covers ….. And here’s everyone’s …..

The Book Covers

Last weekend I did a short course in making a screenprinted book and part of the process was the covers. I did the designs with black acrylic paint brushed onto acetate and then scratched into the surface with a nail when it was dry. The hand lettering was done with a Faber Castell Pitt drawingContinue reading “The Book Covers”

Absolutely Shattered!

It’s the second day of the weekend screenprint book course at Swansea Print Workshop, headed up by Kelly Stewart, and I’m absolutely shattered. We did the drawings and design for it yesterday and today we printed, working at a fast pace in a heatwave! Yesterday, I produced 6 drawn images on acetate for the interior,Continue reading “Absolutely Shattered!”