Tag Archives: @SwanseaHighSt

Taking A Break

4 Sep

It’s the holidays, so I’ve had a bit of a break from art and blogging for a few days and now I’m ready to get stuck in again. I helped to set up a window display of prints at Volcano on Swansea’s High Street today, with my fellow Plebeian Printmakers. We took part in the recent ‘Troublemakers Festival’, making prints from manhole covers in the streets and we’re showing them at Volcano through September.

Some of The Plebeian Printmakers – Melvyn Williams, Patricia McKenna-Jones, Hannah Lawson and Chris Harrendence

 

Melvyn made a short film of us making our prints in the street – here it is ….

We’ll be doing it again in Cardiff at the ‘Made In Roath’ arts festival on October 21st. More on that later …

 

 

 

A lot of my artwork is available on my Artfinder gallery.  If you’d like to have a look, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

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Pavement Plebs

19 Jul

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After getting a soaking with The Plebeian Scribblers last Saturday at the Troublemakers Festival I went back for more on Sunday with The Plebeian Printmakers. We worked the High Street, inking up manhole covers and other bits of pavement and road metal and took prints from them. Luckily, the rain had stopped by the time we were ready to get stuck in.

I wanted to print up some fragments of beautiful Khadi papers, maybe to use in collage like the ones below, but we also made prints in all sizes and on different types of paper and fabrics. We used child-friendly, non-toxic water based printing inks from Seawhites of Brighton that were easy to wash off.

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The Plebeian Printmakers are Patricia McKenna-Jones, Chris Harrendence, Lynne Bebb, Hannah Lawson, Nathan P-J and me. Filmmaker Melvyn Williams filmed us so I’ll post that as soon as he’s edited it.

 

 

For a limited period I am putting a new drawing from my recent sketch books on my Artfinder gallery every day.  If you’d like to check them out, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

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Soggy Scribbling

17 Jul

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Here are a couple more of my soggy scribblings from the Troublemakers Festival over the weekend. It was a sopping Saturday and my fellow Plebeian Scribblers – Melvyn Williams, Patricia McKenna-Jones and Chris Harrendence – stood on Swansea’s High Street and drew for a couple of hours. We got wet. Very wet. So did the sketchbooks. Now I have to work out how to dry out an entire sketchbook without it crinkling or going mouldy.

Melvyn photographed all our drawings and put them into a short video …..

 

 

 

For a limited period I am putting a new drawing of an ancient monument on my Artfinder gallery every day.  If you’d like to check them out, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

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Like A Loaded Brush

16 Jul

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Yesterday I drew in the rain with my fellow Plebeian Scribblers during the Troublemakers arts festival. It was challenging! The sketchbooks quickly got soaked and my drawing pens didn’t work so I changed to a graphite stick and that worked really well. The water on the paper turned the graphite into liquid and it flowed like a loaded brush. Nice.

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For a limited period I am putting a new drawing of an ancient monument on my Artfinder gallery every day.  If you’d like to check them out, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

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Townhill Boy

15 Jul

Townhill Boy

Today I drew for two hours in rain with the public drawing group, The Plebeian Scribblers, along with fellow artists Chris Harrendence, Melvyn Williams and Patricia McKenna-Jones, We were doing our street drawing as part of the Troublemaker’s Festival organised by Volcano on High Street in Swansea. Being Wales, we can’t rely on getting fine weather in the summer and so it rained. And it rained. And it rained some more. This was a challenge for our sketchbooks and drawing materials but graphite sticks won the day, they liked drawing on soaking wet paper. I was drawing a rather boring wig shop window when someone stood in front of me, a Townhill Boy, and it gave the drawing the focus it needed. I put the book onto the pavement to take the photo, you can see how wet it was.

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A Nice Manhole

12 Jul

Here’s a short interview with me, here, about the two events I’m taking part in this coming weekend, July 15th and 16th with The Plebeian Scribblers and The Plebeian Printmakers. I’ll be up to arty shenanigans with hordes of other arty types in a 4 day arty party on Swansea’s High Street starting tomorrow courtesy of @VolcanoUK‘s Troublemakers Festival Fringe .

Hmmmmm, whatever can I be planning to do with this lovely manhole? I like a nice manhole. Check out The Plebeian Printmakers on Sunday July 16th from 13.00 – 15.30 to see what we do with manholes.

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For a limited period I am putting a new drawing from my recent sketch books on my Artfinder gallery every day.  If you’d like to check them out, please click on the image below or the Artfinder link at the top right of this page.

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On The Spot

20 Apr

 

Last Saturday I did some ‘live’ drawing at an art event at Volcano in Swansea’s High Street. My young nephew posed for the best part of 2 hours but he was happy as Larry playing games on my phone. I worked inside the building and drew onto translucent drafting film with carbon, Bideford Black and white conte crayon. Meanwhile, passers by could see the drawing developing from the outside. When I went to take a look, the white conte was far more obvious than on the inside and looked much better in my opinion. The video shows the drawing in progress.

 

Nathan Volcano and Rose 2

I like the challenge of being put on the spot and drawing live, I’ve always been a bit of an adrenaline junkie and I guess that live drawing is my middle aged version of tearing around on motorbikes in my youth. What a buzz!

If you’d like to see some of my other artworks, please click here.

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