Life Drawing

Cardiff Life Model Collective have regular drawing sessions around town. Go to a-muse-me for information on their weekly meetings at Inkspot, 10 Feet Tall, etc.

Graphite Challenge

For the CDG exhibition 'With Reference to...', Lesley Dearn experimented with graphite in powder form (provided by Jan Bennett).

Graphite drawing by Lesley Dearn

At a cost of fifty pence each, Jan supplied a further eighteen small pots of graphite powder (approx 3 heaped teaspoons) to CDG members present at a meeting on Tuesday 16th October.
Her 'Graphite Challenge' is for members to experiment and do whatever they can with it, then 'show and tell' at a meeting in December.
Jan will be taking part in the Cardiff Open Studios event on 27 - 28 October at Printhaus Studios, and any other members who want to take part in the challenge can pick up some graphite from her there.


The Power Inside The Pencil - Grey Matters: Graphite is a downloadable e-book from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, produced to accompany an exhibition there last year highlighting the expressive potential of graphite through four centuries of drawings from the Museum's holdings.

GV Art Gallery London is running a GRAPHITE Group Exhibition until 8 Dec.
'Drawing is as fundamental to my art making as my skeleton is to my body. Drawing is the bones of my thought." Dorothea Rockburne.


The artists involved have each engaged with this often over-looked medium within contemporary art. Dragan Ilic's interactive sculpture features a snake like piece of rubber stabbed with 3,000 pencils. Pippa Gatty's series of drawings of space matter evokes a cabinet of collected information, both real and imagined. Anais Tondeur's object based work details a narative developed from a pathology specimen of a once swallowed pencil from St Bartholomew's Pathology Museum. Graphite intends to reflect on these innovative and varying explorations by a group of artists, to encourage discussion surrounding the significance of the pencil, and question the belief it is a perfunctory or archaic material.

Come Draw With Me!

The Campaign for Drawing is running a special event at The National Museum, Cardiff on 8 November 2012 from 6.00pm - 8.30 pm

Chose to work with one of five artists (Brendan Stuart Burns, Laura Ford, Marega Palser, Stephen West, Sue Williams) for an evening of drawing in the Impressionist and Modern Art galleries.

Buy tickets from the Big Draw Shop

Cardiff Open Studios

27-28 October 2012  Cardiff Open Studios Weekend
... visit artists' studios all across the city ... get information on where the open studios are located and how to get there.

Made in Roath

The Made in Roath Festival has begun this week, bringing film, music, art, theatre, workshops and more to this thriving area of Cardiff. Events include -

The Big Draw
Marlborough Primary School, Blenheim Rd
Sat 20 Oct, 11am - 4pm

Larger Than Life - Charcoal Drawing Workshop
Roath Park Primary School
Sat 20 Oct, 1pm - 3pm

The Legendary Golden Feathered Queen Duck Hunt
Drawing animals on the move.
By the lighthouse, Roath Park Lake.
Sun 21 Oct, 12 noon - 2pm

Exhibition of Brian Gardeners work
Drawings of Newport and the Moors.
Inkspot Arts & Crafts gallery
Sat 13 - Sat 20 Oct, 9am - 5:30pm

Brzeska's Eagle
Drawings of a taxidermied golden eagle by artist Henri Gaudier Brzeska
g39 gallery, Oxford Street
Fri 12 - Wed 31 Oct, 11am - 5 pm



For further events, details, map, downloadable brochure, etc. visit these websites -
Made in Roath dot Com
Roath Cardiff dot Net

Books, Authors and Artists

Adulterer’s Tongue – Welsh Poems in Translation Ed. Robert Minhinnick - Pauline Williams
Child’s Garden of Verses – Robert Louis Stephenson – Stephanie Lowder
Collins Albatross book of Verse – Leonie Sharrock
Cymbeline – William Shakespeare - Bernard van Lierop
Experience and Education – John Dewey – Bev Morgans
Frankenstein – Mary Shelly - Jan Bennett
Germinal – Emile Zola – Marged Sian Williams
Hatful of Sky – Terry Pratchett – David Maw Cornish
Hill of Dreams - Arthur Machen – Sue Shields
Mabinogion – Translated by Sioned Davies - Sue Paton
Malay Archipelago – Alfred Russel Wallace – Dale Evans
Map that changed the World - Simon Winchester - Sue Edwards
Mother Nature – Sarah Blaffer Hrdy - Sue Roberts
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations – Ed. Elizabeth Knowles – Liz Price
Parliament of Owls – Anonymous Author - Heather Jones
Picture of Dorian Grey – Oscar Wilde - Maggie Davies
Pied Piper of Hamelin - Robert Browning - in Oxford Book of Story Poems - Judy Stephens
Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan – Kay Keogh
Pincher Martin - William Golding - Gerard Whyman
Pagliacci – Ruggiero Leoncavallo - Geraldus John
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen - Lesley Dearn
Red Book of Hergest (Mabinogion Legends) -Translated by Lady Charlotte Guest – Raphaelle Fieldhouse
Riddley Walker – Russell Hoban - Lorna Stephenson
Sad Giraffe Café - Richard Gwyn - Chris Griffin
Snow Queen in Fairy Tales – Hans Christian Anderson - Aimee Taylor
Ulysses - James Joyce - Shirley Anne Owen

 Artist Sue Roberts at work in her studio,
inspired by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's book, Mother Nature.

Artist Lesley Dearn drawing in her studio,
with reference to ... Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice.

Artist Shirley Anne Owen with her brush drawing
inspired by the debris on the beach in chapter 18 of Ulysses.

With Reference to ... Drawing Inspiration

In an artistic twist on the literary, Cardiff Drawing Group challenge the boundaries of drawing in their latest show ‘With reference to …’ at Art Central, Town Hall, Barry, from 18 September to 13 October, inspired by the Vale of Glamorgan's 'Book Week'. 

Drawing on works as wildly varied as Frankenstein and The Snow Queen, visitors will be surprised by the artistic interpretations of many literary favourites. Pride and Prejudice, the Mabinogion and the works of Shakespeare share the walls with the Dictionary and Darwin. The show invites the viewer to think about their favourite written works in new and unusual ways.

Artist Shirley Anne Owen, said:

“The show is an exciting opportunity to really explore a piece of literature visually.  I hope the viewer will be intrigued by the individual investigations and in whether they agree with the artists' ways of seeing things.”

Since 2002 Cardiff Drawing Group has been meeting, to draw, and to question what drawing is. Always seeking new challenges, the group regularly exhibits, producing work that can be quirky, funny, and is constantly surprising. Choosing themes that push and expand their individual drawing practice, the group aim to engage and challenge the viewer.