My set up for filming the Bilateral Art Practice. Don't normally show myself in the process but I put a few clips in the second video below...

​Bilateral Selection of Small Sketches
Compact Charcoal Sticks 
& Conté Crayon
A3 Cartridge Paper
2025
By Penelope Rose

​​Refining to the abstraction, for the last 5 weeks I have preparing a selection of abstract compositions for my own work and planning for workshops the work has been influenced by recent Ferndale Run experiences. I prepared these resources especially for a ‘Abstract Compositions’ workshop on the 22nd February 2025. However, it has taken a lot of constructing and deconstructing to created the simplified forms into  the little boxed sketches you see above.

​All the previous sketches the I created Bilaterally emerged unintentionally  ‘working from memory’. This is possibly due to act of drawing simultaneously with both hands. Over the years I have experienced the effect of drawing out the memory in this way. I have also in general found focusing on pure abstract to be a challenge and it has normally occurred from a concrete beginning and moves towards more abstract forms by repeating and extracting forms and feelings through many sketches. 

​I finally got to the point of having two pages of Abstract Compositional sketches on the day of the workshop which I was delivering in that evening. I was then able to ask the participants to select from the 12 compositions based on; portrait, cantilever, constellations, cruciform, diagonal, curves, vertical, overlapping forms, loose golden ratio, spiritual, rule of thirds, horizontal… etc. To decide on 2/3 or more or a combination there of to explore, combine and expand upon into a larger piece on canvas with acrylic & mixed media.

​As their facilitator I was able to show them my process and struggles to finally get to the abstract forms and help them to skip to the many stages I pushed myself through, to be able to enjoy an introduction to go from a small selection abstract sketches to an acrylic & mixed media abstract composition in three hours. Which is no mean feat! They got there with room for further development and this has laid the foundations for the next upcoming workshops.   

As part of my research into Bilateral Art Practices, which for many years I have nicknamed ‘Two Pen Penny’ ,  I am now studying for my MRes at Cardiff Metropolitan University. I am overlapping my lesson planning and resources for the workshops that I am running. To include wherever possible opportunities to explore the practice through different media, themes and methods and personal work, such as my Ferndale Run Series. 

I aim to let the Bilateral Art Practice seep into every part of my Personal Development Portfolio as part of my research and professional practice. 

It was a vibrant evening with Adele, Helen, Helen, David, and Liz, whose birthday we celebrated in style,
who created an abstract figurative piece I'm calling "The Purple Painter."

Special thanks to David and Liz for adding extra flair with delightful cakes, brownies, and 0.0 drinks—perhaps the start of a new tradition!

Everyone came with an open mind to exploring various approaches to making Abstract art which is to my mind a very tricky form that often takes years of training and experimenting to find ones unique voice with it in, but have to start somewhere. I began by showing the group a possible starting points from my own work prepared especially for the workshop, and tasking them to select from 12 compositions, to decide on 2/3 or more... to explore, combine and expand into a larger piece on canvas with acrylic & mixed media. Not an easy task but they went for into and enjoyed a few hours letting themselves become the navigators of their own abstract art makers with me on hand to facilitate them through the process.’

From the Series: Ferndale Run & Two Pen Penny
Quink Ink Wash, Diluted Bleach,
Indian Ink on Paper
2025
by Bilateral Artist 
Penelope Rose
26th ‎January ‎2025
Link to Video

Bilateral Art Practice: This Quink ink with diluted bleach was created by placing my left hand in the top box and my right in the bottom to then draw simultaneously with waterwashes for ‘controlled chaos’ rendering. Working from memory, what emerged was the feeling I received running through the forestry in Ferndale on the top of the hills, with the light filtering through the dark vertical columns. The work was meant to be a vertical abstract composition, but every time I worked this way vivid memories reflected from my recent adventures running around in the new environment I have recently moved into in the Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. This was following a recent separation in Cardiff and now staying with a friend in Ferndale. 

One of my thoughts as I first ran through the miles and miles of woodland, was ‘I am not out of the woods yet’, the metaphor and the situation was literally the same, and I laughed out loud to myself in the middle of nowhere. I have never ran so far and felt so lost and unsure of where I was, or going too. I even took a wrong turn and had to retrace my steps and find the correct path. It’s no surprise that the image came through this sketch.      

From the Series: Ferndale Run & Two Pen Penny
Colored Pencil, Texture Medium, and Acrylic Paint
By Penelope Rose
27th ‎January ‎2025
Link to Video

Top of the Road Back 
Down to Ferndale
Series: Ferndale Run 
Conte crayon & Acrylic Paint
2025
by Penelope Rose
27th ‎January ‎2025
Link to Video

In the study for the, ‘Top of the Road Back, Down to Ferndale’ I used bilateral art practice placing my left hand in the top box and my right hand in the bottom to then draw simultaneously allowing for the mirroring of a memory to appear of the area, remembering the moment after I come out of the woods and I am about the run back down the side of the mountain into Ferndale. 

Drawing with coloured pencils, to build up scrubbled layers, and then adding texture with pallet knives for the texture of dried long grass sculpted by the wind leaving traces of swirls and zig zags, in the forms laying before me at the top of the road. I then developed this into a small painting with Acrylic and Mixed Media layers  and 'sgraffito' a term used for scratching into paint to remind me of the way I felt the weather sculpted the Rhondda Valley. This in turn forms my preparation for a follow up workshop from the ‘Abstract compositions’ to create an Abstract Landscape on Saturday 5th April 2025.

📅 Date: Saturday, 5th April 2025
⏰ Time: 6 PM – 9 PM
💰 Cost: £33 per person
BOOK NOW

Explore the beauty of the Rhondda Valley through expressive abstract landscape painting, using acrylics and mixed media to capture movement and energy.

🌊 Full-Day Workshop: Expressive Abstract Seascape 📅 Date: Saturday, 8th March 2025
🕥 Time: 10:30 AM – 4:00 PM
💰 Cost: £49.50 per person
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Capture the rhythm of the sea in a vibrant abstract seascape using layering techniques, acrylic mediums, and expressive composition.

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Let’s keep the creativity flowing together!
Looking forward to seeing you all soon and sharing more updates from my artistic and academic journey.
With creativity & flow,
Penelope

With these sketches I drew with both hands at the same time, but this time in a box for each, mirror and/or echoed.  

I've add a few personal visual notes on various abstract compositions with reference to the following abstract artists; Lyubov Popova 1889-1924, Agnes Martin 1912-2004, Joan Miro 1893 -1983, Kazimer Malevich 1878-1935, Bridget Riley 1931-,Sonia Delaunay 1885-1979, Mary Lloyd Jones, Joan Mitchel 1925-1992 and Hilma af Klint 1862-1944. To whom I will be referring to briefly in the introduction for the workshop on the 22nd February 2025.

​Abstract Art is a form of creativity I greatly admire for it crosses boundaries of conformality into other realms that seem to enter the spiritual or other worldly forms without words, beyond language purely dancing it's own game with rules that it pushes, breaks, reforms and in which finds harmony and occasionally it transcends and for me personally leaves speechless.