Eight- St
Mike wanted to circumnavigate Carn Llywd which looms over the hostel, so in the morning we set off for the cliff path in search of what appeared to be a burial chamber on the cliff edge. It was a collapsed kist chamber, so I drew while Mike took photos.
Having eventually found our path around the hill we had lunch before heading into St David's for much needed supplies, and to find the artist-in-residence at the Oriel-y-Parc visitor centre. I was distracted when looking into the gallery area to see a Ben Nicholson on the wall- further investigation yielded a slew of St Ives artists: Heron, Lanyon, Wells etc as the theme for the year was "The Sound of the Sea", and it was also a rather vicarious thrill to be able to get my nose VERY close up to a Turner seascape to study the brushwork. There were several Graham Sutherland pieces on display: Pembrokeshire having been his muse, and in the foyer the BBC programme where Rolf Harris paints a version of "Road to Porth Clais" was playing, so I settled down to watch it. Eventually I finally made it into the residency studio, where Rhian Davis was contemplating a generous blob of yellow on her brush and was immediately amused to see she has the same sort of paint colour reference charts that I make up, which got the conversation going quite nicely!
Rhian is a marine biologist, and started painting a year ago, using her late father's materials. Her work is colourful, semi-abstract and features marine environments, and I took to her bold use of colour straight off. She was welcoming and friendly, and our conversation led to discussing subject, motivation, self-discipline and experiment.
The combined experiences of Oriel-y-Parc resulted in my getting very fired up creatively. It is definitely the most informative visitor centre I have ever been in and I thoroughly recommend it if you are in St Davids. I dragged Mike off to nearby Caerfai beach, which has bands of green and Barbie-pink striped sandstone in the cliffs, and while he rockpooled I got busy drawing.
After some time working on different areas of rocks and cliffs, I got up to join him, only to find the remains of a dead magpie tangled in weed, which I really had to draw for posterity- I have a special affinity with magpies.
As dinner cooked, I sat outside the kitchen door and drew the mass of Carn Llidi rising behind us.
Lastly, that night I drew the shapes of the fields below the hostel, very simply, using the side of a brush pen. Possibly it was the only time I really used my chosen medium to its full considered extent, rather than just grabbing a particular pen to make marks with.
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