I’ve created a page on my website bringing together photos, videos & fragments that follow the life of a relief print—from a blackened block before the first cut, through to the traces & remnants left behind. The page isn’t intended as a demonstration of […] [Original post on toot.wales]

Drawing is a way of understanding form through the movement of the hand. More thoughts on drawing as a way of knowing at https://www.julianbrasington.co.uk/drawings

Light Fall On Me Charcoal on paper, 76 x 55 cm I’ve spent the past week editing the available work on my website and have created a new selection of drawings (link in bio). Looking at them together, the work is less about landscape or the figure than about […] [Original post on toot.wales]

A short piece and video on how dissatisfaction with one drawing gave birth to another. You can read it on my Substack. #drawing

I’m enjoy these quick drawings and exploring how oak gall ink interacts with charcoal. 10 x 10 sheet. #drawing

‘Forest’. Charcoal on paper, 110 cm x 55 cm (3 ft 7” x 1 ft 9.5 “). Inspired by a glimpse of moon showing through pines. In its first state, this was a very dark drawing. I took it back by burnishing heavily and scoring into the paper with my fingernails before working in more charcoal. #drawing

Burnt wood, reed pen, oak gall ink. #drawing

A drawing that came as something of a surprise. It arrived at the point when I’d barely begun and I knew then that I could do no more. I’ve written a studio note about its arrival. You can read it on my website or on my Substack […] [Original post on toot.wales]

A sketch from a windy day at Traeth Lafan. #sketchbook

Something of a departure, though in many ways a return. I haven’t made a print for a long while and it was fascinating over the weekend to learn about etching with Flora McLachlan. This piece is of the lower gate at Plas Brondanw and was etched in copper. Of the […] [Original post on toot.wales]

One of those drawings that I sit looking at for hours on end when I put down the charcoal. Untitled as yet. 50 x 38 cm #drawing

"Life and its Replacement with a Dull Reflection of Itself (Preliminary Theses of the Pleasure Tendency)" Ballpoint pen on paper, 15 x 20 cm. #MastoArt #FediArt #Art#mastoart#Drawing#fediart#sketching #ballpointpen

Detail from a new charcoal drawing. I was working on this piece yesterday and felt uneasy about it as it declared itself too easily. In the night I took it right back. Lifting the veil it became luminous. The full work is 110 cm x 55 cm and remains on the easel […] [Original post on toot.wales]

The mayflower (hawthorn) is in glorious bloom at the moment and that being so here’s a poem for May. More poems on my website if that’s your kind of thing. #poetry

I’ve been making my own willow charcoal over the last few nights and if you’d like to try it, it’s a very simple process and produces a lovely charcoal. 1. Cut sticks of willow and strip off the bark; 2. Place equal thickness lengths in a tin can and cover the […] [Original post on toot.wales]

Detail from a new work — ‘Fragile State’, charcoal on paper, 76 x 55 cm. One of a few recent drawings that I’ve put up on the website today. https://www.julianbrasington.co.uk/drawings #drawings #art

‘Carneddau’, charcoal on paper, 56 x 76 cm Seen on a walk from the village to Maeni Hirion | The Druid’s Circle. #drawing #art

A drawing that started loose, then hardened into certainty and had to be pulled back. Charcoal on paper, 56 x 76 cm (22 x 30 inches). #drawing

‘Untitled (April V), charcoal on paper, 50 x 38 cm. One of a series of recent works which begin as figures and are then worked into landscape. #drawing

For those who like to read about process, a short account of the metamorphoses behind a ‘finished’ drawing. https://www.julianbrasington.co.uk/studio-notes/unparticled-marks #drawing

Untitled (April) VI. Charcoal, 50 x 38 cm. Half memory, half place, all weather. #drawing

The form begins to turn. A face mapped in charcoal dust with fingers. Should’ve stopped there but I didn’t. Still learning to trust my instinct. #drawing

[Face — vacant / sad] Distressed face — in both senses of the meaning. Underneath, a tonal drawing which I distressed with the palm of my hand and then worked over before distressing it again. I find it both hard to look at and hard not to look at. I guess […] [Original post on toot.wales]

Untitled (April) III, charcoal on paper, 49 x 38 cm. A moment of calm #drawing #silentsunday

Untiltled (March) II, charcoal, 56 x 76 cm Been spending a lot of time looking up lately

Having spent so much time over recent years bent over small blocks of wood and lino it’s liberating to be working at scale. Charcoal drawing, 56 x 76 cm (22” x 29”). #drawing

I’m currently working on a manuscript which explores seeing and making through the lense of poetry, drawing, and reflection — the critical question being how we can see without fixing. This charcoal drawing is at the core of the work: half seen — emerging and […] [Original post on toot.wales]

"Die Ordnung herrscht in Berlin" Ballpoint pen on paper, 15 x 20 cm. #MastoArt #FediArt #Art#mastoart#Drawing#fediart#sketching #ballpointpen

‘Untitled’. Charcoal drawing 29 x 42 cm (11.5 x 16.5 inches) on Somerset Textured paper. This drawing in many ways reflects the direction of travel of my work and the ideas of transience and emergence that underpin it. I’ve uploaded it to the homepage of my […] [Original post on toot.wales]

Charcoal drawing, 76 x 56 cm (30 x 23 in). A fun piece to work on and a good lesson. There was a point at which the work really was done and foolishly I tidied it up by adding detail to one eye — I lost much of what was good about the face as a result and ended up […] [Original post on toot.wales]

It’s been a long time in the making, but I now have a new look to my website: studio notes, poems, a small selection of drawings and prints. It feels good to have finished it and to be able to get back to a different kind of making. https://www.julianbrasington.co.uk

I’m in the middle of a major rebuild of my website and am currently curating the work that I’ll show there. As part of the process, last night I gathered together ink-jet printouts of some of work that I’ve done over the last few years and laid them out randomly […] [Original post on toot.wales]

First proof print from the finished block. The columnar basalt cliffs of Rubha Hunish on the northern tip of Skye. 75x75mm wood engraving. To the right, the engraving in a lemonwood block, after printing.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if all was calm, still, and not subject to the whim of a few self-aggrandising people and the machines that support them. Perhaps one day. Until then, here’s a short poem I had published in Ink Sweat & Tears in 2024, and a linocut I made a […] [Original post on toot.wales]

First proof and this is one I am really going to have to think about. 15 x 15 cm linocut, mostly improvised on the block and suffering in the end from too much happening. That said, if you like detail, it might be worthwhile wandering around inside it for a bit […] [Original post on toot.wales]

Detail from a linocut work in progress. This is a block I abandoned a year or so back and came upon last week. It’s one of those ‘let’s see what happens pieces’ and I’m enjoying playing with it. Hoping to proof it next week before deciding where to go with foreground (not in this picture). #linocut

One for the poetry peeps out there. You can read similar stuff at: https://www.julianbrasington.co.uk/poetry #poetry

Living on the coast, it’s perhaps inevitable that the sea flows through my work and so I’ve added a filter to my website that allows you to search for seascapes in the shop. This photo shows a few of the prints and drawings that you’ll find there […] [Original post on toot.wales]

‘Looks like murder’, 22 x 20 cm linocut of The Street, Castle Combe. When I printed this piece it struck me (with its brooding blacks and stark whites) as a scene out of a 1930s murder mystery — hence the title. It is a print I made some three years back and such […] [Original post on toot.wales]

A still night in the mountains. ‘Un Nos Ola Leuad’ (one moonlit night) is a 4.5 x 6 cm boxwood engraving which I have hand-pressed to Somerset Satin paper. If you know North Wales, you’ll likely recognise Castell Dolbadarn as its subject. The title for the print […] [Original post on toot.wales]

Watercolour on Two Rivers handmade paper, the thick stuff. 79x56 cm.

Just mailed out my latest newsletter. If you’d like to receive them in the future, you can subscribe from my website and unsubscribe whenever you want. The latest one has news of a recent commission by Amgueddfa Cymru / Museums Wales which I am looking forward to […] [Original post on toot.wales]

Wide format so you may have to play with this. 14 x 43 cm charcoal and Pierre noire drawing in a Stillman & Birn soft cover sketchbook. Eglwys Sant Baglan sits on the shore of the Afon Menai (Menai Strait) in North west Wales. A few years back I made a wood […] [Original post on toot.wales]

Charcoal drawing based on fragments of a 12C baptismal font housed in the Musée Art et Histoire, Bruxelles. Somerset Satin paper, 56.5 x 26 cm. I had intended more detail in this drawing but I reached a point yesterday where it felt finished. It said enough. And […] [Original post on toot.wales]

Came upon a box of Conté pencils when I was tidying up this afternoon and got distracted. Not quite got the angles nor the shade right on this drawing but it was good to work with the pencils. Just need to finish tidying up now. #drawing #conte

Cold hard stare. Sketchbook drawing — graphite on Ingres laid paper. #drawing #portrait

New blog post on drawing without looking at your drawing. You may find it interesting if you’re looking to try something new. https://www.julianbrasington.co.uk/blog/the-hand-knows-what-the-eye-sees

Been doing a lot of these lately. Compressed charcoal on heavy cartridge paper. #drawing #charcoal

Sat listening to Ólafur Arnalds ‘Momentary - choir version’ on loop and with my eyes closed I got the urge to draw with my eyes shut. I put two A3 sheets of paper together on my easel, shut my eyes and, with my right hand holding the top of the easel so that I […] [Original post on toot.wales]

The things that lodge inside us. Saw a stunning cloud formation yesterday and went to draw it in charcoal and this happened. I do and don’t like it as a drawing. The little house was added as a final touch and was unintended at the outset. It makes the […] [Original post on toot.wales]