Sketch of Pen y Fan from Dare Valley

Pen y Fan

This is a fairly distant view of the Mountain from near Aberdare. Pencil and watercolour on mountboard. Experimenting with base materials that won't warp. Approx 4 inches x 2 1/2 inches.

Aberdare Art

Bench patterns

As part of the printing heritage project in Aberdare; Sebastien Boyeson, the artist who designed the new benches and other features in the town centre gave a talk on how he came to produce the designs he did. Here are some of the patterns and samples he brought along. The bench supports, made from cast iron, actually represent individual cast sorts. The front is the type face. and the back represents the foot and groove of the sort. The rest of the benches are made from aluminium.

The theme for his artwork follows the brief to produce benches that would reflect the rich printing heritage of Aberdare.

Neville Hall Exhibition

The Neville Hall hospital exhibition is now up in the outpatients department. It features 11 new paintings done especially for the exhibition. The exhibition space is run by GARTH (Gwent Arts and Health), a voluntary organisation promoting art in healthcare settings. 

The Bear, Crickhowell

Black and white linocut, 6 x 4 inches approx of The Bear public house in Crickhowell. This is in preparation for the celebration exhibition at the Cric Resource Centre which I am taking part in from next week.

http://www.willowarch.co.uk/gallery_367649.html#photos_id=8183713

Exhibition

Put some posters up today in various shops, libraries and post offices.

Apart from pulling a few more lino prints all the hard work is done. I need to concentrate on other stuff in April and will hopefully get back to more artwork in May.

Exhibition at Cynon Valley Museum

Here are the finished images, framed and stuck on the wall. I think these are my favourites. Thanks to the museum for loan of frames and hanging them well.

Hot off the press

Well they would be if I had a press! I had run out of these so have printed a nother short run. All my prints are hand pulled as I cannot justify the cost of a press. This means its easier to produce smaller prints and paper that is too thick can be very hard work.

Mountain Ash linocut stage 3

Final image of reduction linocut.

Mountain Ash Reduction linocut Stage 2

Starting to emerge from the paper now. I was going to add another 2 colours but I think one more will do the job.

Buildings linocut

Linocut on A3 paper mainly finished with blue and red.

New linocut of buildings

Details of various buildings in and around Aberdare and Mountain Ash. This is a proof of the main colour, black. Hope to finish tomorrow with 2 blocks for blue and pink.

Two Linocuts

The two linocuts in their finished form. Colour versions will have to wait till I have more time.

Mountain Ash Linocut

This linocut print is almost finished, at least this plate is. This and the previous Aberdare linocut will have hopefully have colour too.

Mountain Ash Linocut

On the same lines as the previous print of Aberdare this is another large montage of some of the buildings in Mountain Ash. Took a good day to draw the design and just starting the cutting out, probably another 10 to 12 hours of carving to finish this plate!

Linocut proof

Almost finished Aberdare buildings montage. Need to decide on colour for the next stage and give statue a face and tidy up the edges. Want to start on Mountain Ash montage tomorrow.

Latest linocut

A quarter way through this linocut of Aberdare, a montage of some of the more noticeable buildings. End result will be slightly smaller than A3 and in a number of colour combinations.

Victoria Square, Aberdare

Another attempt at this view of Victoria Square, this time in acrylic on coard. About A3 size.

St Fagan's Church. Trecynon

The small acrylic sketch was done to get an idea of the composition, then the large collage made using cut outs from other unwanted sketches and printing ink trials.

St Elvan's Church again

Decided the orange and the pink was too much so have muted the tones with patterned shapes, added darker tones to the foreground etc

St Elvan's Church

Its difficult to ignore this building, on a hill right in the middle of Aberdare. However unless your in a helicopter its also impossible to see the whole thing because its surrounded by buildings. This is a large acrylic collage sketch, not yet stuck down so it will probably change again.