Tag Archives: The Plebeian Scribblers

The Last Of The Wet Ones

23 Jul

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Here’s the last drawing I made at the Troublemaker’s Festival last weekend, in the pouring rain, with my fellow Plebeian Scribblers, Chris Harrendence, Patricia McKenna-Jones and Melvyn Williams. Here we are below. The sketchbooks got really wet and I had extra problems because I had stuck ripped brown paper into my book, but the soaking started peeling it off.

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Photo courtesy of Gwyl Troublemakers Festival

Here’s a short film that Melvyn did of all the drawings we made…..

 

And no time to stop and rest …. on with the next thing ….. coming up at Cinema & Co ….

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Challenging

22 Jul

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My sketchbook has finally dried out after the soaking I had with The Plebeian Scribblers last Saturday at the Troublemakers Festival. We stood in the rain for a couple of hours, drawing in public and it was, well, challenging. I thought it might dry very crinkled or mouldy but it’s not too bad. It’s been very warm weather which helped dry it quickly.

 

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Here we are, from left to right, Chris Harrendence, me, Melvyn Williams and Patricia McKenna-Jones. I really like working with other artists. It can be a very isolated profession so it’s nice to get out and collaborate. We tried different drawing materials but we pretty much ended up using graphite blocks which dissolved into a lovely fluid line on the soaking paper.

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Photograph courtesy of Gwyl Troublemakers’ Festival

 

 

No time for slacking, on to the next arty shenanigans – coming up on July 31st …….Page_1

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Live To Draw Again!

30 May

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This is a 10 minute sketch of fellow artist Chris Harrendence who is one of the 4 members of The Plebeian Scribblers and we spent a day last weekend doing ‘live’ drawing in Fringe Arts Bath. We had a set amount of time split into 10-minute slots. Once 10 minutes was up, we changed position and went onto another 10-minute drawing. We did 10 drawings each, quite a body of work for one day. It was boiling hot and very tiring but worth it. We had loads of people stopping and looking at what we were doing, we’re all very committed to taking art out of white cubes and into public spaces. The other Plebeian Scribblers are Patricia McKenna-Jones and Melvyn Williams.

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I used a selection of graphite sticks and Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens into an A4 hardbound Daler Rowney sketchbook. It’s a challenge to work in such a formal way, normally I cast around and choose what I want to draw carefully, but this time we were given a specific street to work in and we had choreographed our positions so we had to draw whatever was in front of us during each 10 minute stint. Sometimes I was just looking at a shop window full of advertising and merchandise, so I did a couple of drawings of reflections and some of adverts, not normally what I’d choose to do. We all thought it was worthwhile though so The Plebeian Scribblers might live to draw again!

 

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Telling A Story

26 May

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Sometimes when I’m out scribbling on the street, a story unfolds. There were three elderly people sitting on a bench in Bath last Saturday enjoying the street artists in A FAB Intervention when a woman wandered over to them and started talking in a very animated way. That made the drawing more interesting for me to do and made for a better composition. I used a grey graphite stick into my A4 hardbacked sketchbook.

I was in Bath as part of The Plebeian Scribblers, a group of 4 artists who draw in public. We stood in a square formation facing outwards and drew what was in front of us for 10 minutes, then the timer went off and we each turned 90 degrees to the right and drew for another ten minutes. This was repeated twice more (forty minutes in all) then we had a break for half an hour because it was BOILING, hottest day of the year so far! We did two more stints during the afternoon, I was shattered by the end.

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Hot And Sweaty Scribbling

25 May

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Here’s a sketch I did out on the street in Bath last Saturday as part of Fringe Arts Bath. I drew throughout the afternoon with The Plebeian Scribblers, a group of 4 artists from South Wales who draw in public. We took a timer and changed position every 10 minutes so each sketch is time limited. It’s a challenge to draw crowds of people on the move and locate people within the cityscape with fairly accurate proportions. I drew into my A4 hardbacked sketchbook with a grey graphite stick.

It was brilliant sunshine, the first day of a long Bank Holiday weekend and Bath is a very popular tourist destination anyway so it was hot, sweaty and teeming with people. And The Plebeian Scribblers wear a uniform of boiler suits or bib’n’braces which made me a bit hot and sweaty too! Bath is a great place to visit, loads of history, lovely architecture, great shopping and very, very quirky. This is a book about Bath (The Naked Guide To Bath) written by the brilliantly named Gideon Kibblewhite and it’s one of the best I’ve read about the place.

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Fringe Arts Bath

22 May

Lots happening in Bath from tomorrow with this huge arts festival. I’ll be there on Saturday the 23rd with three fellow artists. We’re The Plebeian Scribblers and we’re doing an intervention on Union Street throughout the afternoon along with loads of other live art performers.

Fringe Arts Bath.

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