This is my first tryout with my geographic palette, a drawing based on a sketch I did en plein air on a field trip with colleagues from Swansea University’s FIRE Lab a couple of months ago when we went off exploring culverts up in the Brecon Beacons. The charcoal I bought a fewContinue reading “My Geographic Palette #1 – Charcoal”
Tag Archives: walnut ink
My Geographic Palette
I’m thinking about how to develop from the sketches I’ve done on a couple of field trips with colleagues in the FIRE Lab team and, as the research project is about ecosystems and environment, I thought I’d try as much as possible to use natural earths, plants and minerals in my artworks, so I’m puttingContinue reading “My Geographic Palette”
Snipe Silhouette
So now I’m getting a bit obsessed with Snipe, a funny little bird with impossibly skinny legs and beak, for wading and probing at the water’s edge, beautifully designed for its environment. In these drawings I focused on the silhouette to try and establish the overall shape of the bird, using my own home-madeContinue reading “Snipe Silhouette”
A Greenfinch In Stages
Here’s a little greenfinch I drew recently, a stuffed one, very old and fragile. I took photos of the different stages of development using conté crayons into my A4 spiral bound brown paper sketchbook. I used the white first, then sanguine and finally black. I spent a day drawing with a groupContinue reading “A Greenfinch In Stages”
Bitterns And Stripes
I think I’m falling for those crazy bitterns. I couldn’t take my eyes of them at a recent drawing day at Swansea Museum, they’re awesome….. I used my Issabey brushes and my home-made walnut ink into a Khadi sketchbook, using the double spread. I focussed on the shape of the group, doing a sort ofContinue reading “Bitterns And Stripes”
Home Made Inks
I went to an event at the excellent GS Artists in Swansea’s High Street last weekend, featuring the artist Sarah Poland at the end of her recent residency. I loved her work, mostly on paper – some of it huge- and using her own home-made oak gall ink. It’s similar in colour and texture toContinue reading “Home Made Inks”
Like Liquid Silk
I did some development work today, using one of the drawings I did en plein air on a recent field trip with colleagues from Swansea University’s FIRE Laboratory. I sketched some culverts up in the Brecon Beacons, near the source of the River Tawe and today I worked on a very large piece of vintageContinue reading “Like Liquid Silk”
Collage En Plein Air
Husb and I went for a walk down to Foxhole Bay on the Gower Peninsula today, partly to get some exercise and also to get some art work done en plein air. The land and sea are very rugged and I decided not to draw but to do some collage using papers I prepared quiteContinue reading “Collage En Plein Air”
More Rummaging
I had another rummage through the big drawers in my plans chest and found some more lovely papers that I’d used but didn’t do anything more with. This is a piece of paper stretched and gessoed then painted at random with my home-made walnut ink. I had taken it out on my journeys around WalesContinue reading “More Rummaging”
Coming Full Circle
A few weeks ago I was privileged to join one of Fern Smith‘s women’s circles, part of her ‘Seven Sundays In Spring’, walking through the beautiful deer park in Dynefwr, Llandeilo, drawing an extraordinary wintry tree in my sketchbooks, here’s one of the sketches below… I have thousands of sketches and dozens of sketchbooks lockedContinue reading “Coming Full Circle”