Things To Do With A Seagull

I’ve been on a two-day course in Renaissance-style drawing at Swansea Metropolitan University – which used to be the Art College. It was very thorough and we used the sort of paper and drawing materials that were available back in the days of Leonardo and Michaelangelo. Paper was scarce and expensive so they tended toContinue reading “Things To Do With A Seagull”

Pooped at the Printfair!

  A drawing in my Tate Postcard sketchbook from my trip to NYC to see the International Print Fair a couple of years ago. We had been walking around Manhatten for days, going to exhibitions, talks and demonstrations of printmaking and we were pooped! We holed up in this very modernist cafe near the BloomsburyContinue reading “Pooped at the Printfair!”

A Watercolour Gorefest!

    I don’t usually paint, preferring pen and ink, charcoal and chalk. Now and again I bring out the watercolours in life drawing sessions and have a bash. The received wisdom is that watercolour is a gentle, refined medium where you build up layers of pale delicate glazes. Some of the artists in theContinue reading “A Watercolour Gorefest!”

My Cat’s New B.F.F. – the Kettle.

We have a big boiler in the kitchen and for the past seventeen years it was ruled by Bobbit, our recently deceased tortoiseshell [calico] queen. It’s been five weeks now since she died and in the past week Ming the Merciless, our next oldest cat, has grabbed the space and made it her own. ForContinue reading “My Cat’s New B.F.F. – the Kettle.”

My Cat’s New B.F.F. – the Kettle.

We have a big boiler in the kitchen and for the past seventeen years it was ruled by Bobbit, our recently deceased tortoiseshell [calico] queen. It’s been five weeks now since she died and in the past week Ming the Merciless, our next oldest cat, has grabbed the space and made it her own. ForContinue reading “My Cat’s New B.F.F. – the Kettle.”

Minus 15 and still drawing

Minus fifteen in Berlin and I’m drawing in the snow. I carry my sketchbook and draw all over the place and it went with me to Germany in January 2010 which was one of the coldest winters in a generation with two feet of snow and temperatures dropping to minus 20ºC at night. I’ve neverContinue reading “Minus 15 and still drawing”