Epic Fail!

Sometimes things go wrong and I had an epic fail a few days ago when I was working on a new Letterpress piece at Swansea Print Workshop. I spent ages setting up the type, I really liked how it looked in its wooden state so I inked it up with a rainbow roll, using CranfiedContinue reading “Epic Fail!”

Let The Water Do The Work.

Here’s another little watercolour from my adult teaching session this week. I’ve been emphasising that the important thing about watercolours is actually the water, letting the image develop as it dries. We flooded the stretched Bockingford paper with clean water then using a very wet brush, “dropped” the wet pigment onto the paper without overworkingContinue reading “Let The Water Do The Work.”

Teaching Watercolours – The Reveal

Today was a fun day. Last week’s adult education group prepared some samples of different watercolour effects but they were still wet when they left (below), so today we had the big reveal! It’s always exciting and these techniques often have that WOW factor! We used Winsor & Newton Cotman half pans onto Bockingford watercolourContinue reading “Teaching Watercolours – The Reveal”

Setting The Type.

I spent a happy couple of hours at Swansea Print Workshop this afternoon, experimenting with the vintage wooden typefaces to design my next little experiment in letterpress. I had more or less settled on this one but then I couldn’t find any quoins to hold it together, so I’ll have to go back to finishContinue reading “Setting The Type.”

#Caturday: The Golden One.

It’s #Caturday Saturday once again and I’ve been playing with a picture of Sparta Puss in Adobe Photoshop. I put the photo through a Coloured Pencil filter and then cranked up the Saturation to create this golden effect.

Teaching Watercolour Basics

I did some more adult teaching this week, I’m running a short course in watercolour basics, covering a range of simple and accessible techniques. The group started with stretching some watercolour paper with paper gumstrip (learnt last week), sectioning it up with masking tape and producing 4 samples of different techniques. This is the demonstrationContinue reading “Teaching Watercolour Basics”

Archive Life Drawing: 1

I’ve been browsing through some of my archives and seeing loads of work I’d forgotten about. This is from 10 years ago, working with an older male model, John. I went through a brief phase of drawing onto collaged paper and mixing up my drawing materials – charcoal, conte crayon and oil bars. I don’tContinue reading “Archive Life Drawing: 1”

Unplanned Scraping.

I carried on with the nocturne painting by scraping on some pinks with a palette knife. It wasn’t planned, I had some Titanium White, Medium Magenta and Dioxazine Violet left over from another painting and as always, “waste not, want not”. I’m not sure if the colour will make it though to the final pieceContinue reading “Unplanned Scraping.”

Slapping It On …..

I carried on with the still life painting I started a couple of weeks ago. I’m really enjoying this, I’m not being precious about it so I can just slap the paint on without stressing about it, impasto style. If I don’t like what I’ve done, I’ll just paint over it. It’s gradually building upContinue reading “Slapping It On …..”

#StandingStoneSunday.

It’s Standing Stone Sunday on social media again and I’ve chosen a strange little drawing I did of a relatively local monument, Maen Ceti (Arthur’s Stone) at Cefn Bryn on the Gower Peninsula. It’s a huge magnificent megalith in beautiful countryside and it’s easy to get distracted and concentrate on the surroundings when I’m drawingContinue reading “#StandingStoneSunday.”