The Stone Outside The Village

A journey around Carmarthenshire today, to find, record and draw more Neolithic stone monuments, the first is the Is-coed Stone just outside the gorgeous seashore village of Ferryside. And now I’m tired and aching zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz I’m travelling around South West Wales with archaeologist Dewi Bowen who is researching his new book on Neolithic / Bronze AgeContinue reading “The Stone Outside The Village”

Spots And Stripes

The weather forecast is reasonable, showery in the morning but picking up later, so tomorrow we’re out and about in some mountainous areas on the trail of some ancient stones. I’ve been working on some Fabriano paper in my home-made walnut ink and I’ll be taking some pieces to draw on. I like doing this prepContinue reading “Spots And Stripes”

Memory And Imagination

Working on Fabriano paper with my home-made walnut ink, I’m drawing expressively from my experiences trekking up local mountains to draw Neolithic and Bronze Age stones. The ink flows like liquid silk, holding the brush strokes when undiluted and moving freely across the paper when thinned out with water to make a variety of washes.Continue reading “Memory And Imagination”

Letting Go Of The Comfort Blanket

Here’s something scary, I’m getting out of my comfort zone which is working from what is in front of me. I’ve been clutching to the comfort blanket of working from reality all my life and now I’m trying to let go. And I am not enjoying it one bit. But making art is something IContinue reading “Letting Go Of The Comfort Blanket”

One Of Those Days

Husb and I drove down to Pembrokeshire today to pick up some relatives from the Irish ferry. We went down an hour earlier planning on finding some ancient monuments and do some drawing. Unfortunately the weather had a different idea and threw torrential rain and gales at us. We found a dolmen called Devil’s QuoitContinue reading “One Of Those Days”

Larks Hovered, Kites Circled, I Drew…

Out and about again today with archaeologist Dewi Bowen and film maker Melvyn Williams searching out ancient stone monuments. We had a tough walk up to a late Neolithic stone cairn on Mynydd Bach Trecastell not far from the little village of Trecastle in Powys. To be honest, the cairn wasn’t particularly interesting, I’ve seenContinue reading “Larks Hovered, Kites Circled, I Drew…”

The Quoit Of The King

Husb and I went for a drive on Easter Monday, exploring some of the South Wales coastline that we hadn’t seen before, the lovely beach of Manorbier / Maenorbŷr in South Pembrokeshire. It’s a very ancient settlement with local evidence of flint microliths from the Mesolithic and Neolithic ages and this magnificent dolmen, The King’s Quoit, lookingContinue reading “The Quoit Of The King”

Yes? No? Maybe?

I did an initial cut on a square of soft vinyl a couple of days ago, dividing the piece into 9 small squares and now I need to get an idea of whether they’re okay, which ones need more cutting, which to discard. I could ink it up and put it through a press butContinue reading “Yes? No? Maybe?”

Cutting The Stones

I do a lot of drawings and many of them become the basis of prints. I’ve selected 9 of my recent drawings of ancient Neolithic stone monuments to develop into linocuts. Well, I’m using soft cut vinyl instead of lino but the final print will look the same. The vinyl is very easy to cutContinue reading “Cutting The Stones”

The Offerings

This is the third and final drawing I did at Arthur’s Stone on the Gower Peninsular on Tuesday. It’s the fastest and perhaps the most abstracted of the three. I loved the brushstrokes of the home-made walnut ink so much that I didn’t want to cover them so I kept the linear drawing of theContinue reading “The Offerings”