LOOKING FOR SOMETHING...

I'm keen to find a personal style, perhaps a more distinctive style, for my artwork. Because the only medium I've really worked at with any steadiness over the years is pen and ink, my colour work is lacking in direction and impact.

I'm also aware that I'm lacking any real philosophy in my artwork, and that I don't really have an intellectual approach. I have ideas but they're not really heartfelt enough for me to get obsessive over them, or to really believe in them enough to carry them through.

One idea I'm toying with came about through my photographing work in progress, especially the mixed media pieces I've been doing. At the moment I'm working on 2 very different approaches to a landscape based on a photograph I took of a seaweed strewn beach. Posted here is the mixed media approach, two stages of it plus various detail shots. Today I've been working on another image based on the same photograph but worked in coloured pencil. I've posted work in progress on my Flickr Page.

Whilst I worked today and yesterday I've been listening to Radio 4 Sports Xtra's coverage of the Ashes. I got into cricket in 2005, when the BBC still had TV coverage rights. I watched it with my Dad, who explained the basics to me of this complex game. This year is the first time I've been able to listen to it since Dad died in 2006, I'm enjoying it, but the enjoyment is bitter sweet as it brings back so many memories. I guess this will always be the case.

HEAD IN THE LEAVES...

The last time I put some concerted time into drawing was 2005, the year England won the Ashes. Since then, my life's gone through a lot of changes. Anyway, this year England are attempting to regain the Ashes from Australia, and I'm putting more time and effort into my drawing again. Back then I had this crazy ambition to do a really BIG drawing, it's one of those ambitions I like to comfort myself with just before I fall asleep at night, it helps me drift off, though not always for long.



A little more done...

A few weeks ago I began an attempt at my 'really BIG' drawing at last, on A1 watercolour paper, it's one of my graffiti trees, based on a photograph I took when I visited Scotland, back in 2005. Scotland has the most immense trees, dripping moss and history, craggy veterans, ‘champion' trees like the ones at Ardkinglass Woodland Garden, they seem to personify something of the spirit of Scotland itself. Trees are one of my obsessive subjects (I've done so few drawings really, each one takes such a long time to complete, so I've not given myself enough time to truly obsess over too many things, maybe that's just as well). Graffiti is a subject I obssess over in my photography, whenever I visit a castle or a National Trust property I always end up finding some piece of graffiti, I've got dozens of photographs of graffiti stored digitally on my computer, and doing something with these (a hybrid poetry/art project) is another of my favourite 'sheep' that has guided me into slumberland on more than one occasion. A veteran tree with a name chiselled into its bark, still clear after 40 or more years, seems to me the most poignant image, a memento mori of human fragility, as compared with one of these leafy veterans of several hundred years. Even in its eventual decay a tree provides the most reassuring and tangible image of rebirth - in the thousands of smaller life forms that survive in the decaying wood long after the tree itself has died.

Detail of the base of the tree

PATCHINGS IN THE RAIN

My 'studio' with various work in progress or waiting to be delivered to open exhibitions and competitions.

Today my friend G drove me to the Patchings Art Centre to deliver the 2 artworks (one mixed media piece and one pen and ink drawing) I've had accepted for the Artists section of the Patchings Exhibition. The weather was atrocious, and visibility down to almost nil on the motorway, and it took us almost 3 hours to get up to Calverton, just up above Nottingham, where the exhibition's being held. The arts centre seemed like a very nice place, based around a courtyard with a series of small studios, shops and a restaurant. Unfortunately we didn't stay long, but hopefully will return to see the exhibition next month.

Although it rained most of the day, we managed to visit Rufford Abbey and Country Park. The Abbey is maintained by English Heritage. Until the mid 1930's it was inhabited, and pretty plush too judging by the photographs on display on information boards, but since then it has declined and is now barely more than a shell. It's amazing that this can happen over the space of what is really the blinking of an eye. Makes you realise how fragile everything mankind puts on this earth really is.

Rufford Abbey Country Park also has a really lovely art/craft gallery space and an art school. I loved the gallery in the orangery, a beautiful, tiny space at the head of the formal gardens. When we visited there was an exhibition of ceramics accompanied by a soundrack of ambient music, looking out upon the rain drenced gardens made for an extremely peaceful and transporting experience.

On the way I enjoyed listening to England actually doing well at cricket. I discovered cricket during the Ashes tour of 2005, introduced to it by my father. Since my father died in May 2005 (3 years ago Friday) it's been too painful for me to listen again, but now I'm finding it a comfort. Radio 4 or Sport Xtra coveridge only though, as I don't have Satellite TV.

I do have Digital TV however, and watching the amazing Cesar Milan on the Dog Whisperer re-runs is helping me cope with the loss of Rossie. That man is amazing and the dogs are gorgeous.