A Scottish Diversion

This is the picture I mentioned in my previous post, the one I began in order to divert myself from my Yorkshire picture.

Actually, it's not such a bad idea to have a few pictures on the go at once, it's useful to give yourself some distance from a piece, in order to gain the perspective necessary to judge it more accurately. The Castlerigg picture, for instance, is now looking a touch less impressive than it did last week. Too flat, too smooth, a bit clumbsy.

For the Scottish picture I printed the photograph on my inkjet printer, I had an idea that I'd like to do something that was almost black and white, perhaps to bridge my pen and ink work with the colour work I'd begun doing. So I begun by working on a white gesso base on paper, drawing in 3b pencil. The drawing was a bit lame, and the photograph, though clear, was confusing me. I wasn't doing a very good job of copying it, and this knocked my confidence somewhat. So I painted over the pencil, as had been my plan, in gesso again, made semi-transparent with white acrylic paint with a tint of blue. Then more pencil work again. Okay, but not brilliant. Another coat of gesso, just plain gesso this time, a thin coat just to stop the pencil from coming off on my sleeve and hand. I worked over the gesso and original pencil with coloured pencil, a nice set produced by Derwent, 12 Drawing Pencils, which are produced in earthy colours. They're nice to handle and the pigment feels rich when it goes on, but I'm not sure how lightfast these pencils are. I worry about the lightfastness of materials, and am trying to find out more about the archival properties of the materials I use. It's not something I used to worry about too much, but as I get older I suppose permanence is something which plays on my mind more. A few years ago I invested in a set of Signature coloured pencils, these are advertised as being superbly lightfast, but I'm not certain how coloured pencil, or oil pastel or that matter, would compare to the light fastness of say oil paint? Again, it's something I need to research.

The Scottish beach drawing has had its ups and downs so far, and as it currently stands I'm not too pleased with it. I made a tiny graphite sketch, in order to work out the tonal strengths of the image, and altered the viewpoint of my composition, as I realised that I had over estimated the amount of the photograph I could reproduce on my small piece of paper. I used a pallette knife and acrylic paint, more oil pastel and coloured pencil, as well as a little Indian ink and dip pen in an attempt to add a little crispness to those rocks, but so far I'm still a bit down in the dumps about it. I plan to have one last go at it and then call it a day.

The size of this piece by the way is approx 42cm x 33cm.

STANDING STONE ON THE NORTH YORKSHIRE MOORS

Using my pencil sketch and my 3 photographs, which I printed out on my inkjet printer, I worked up a graphite drawing on a piece of paper I had stretched earlier. I seemed to have lost the knack of stretching paper lately, a little piece always seems to escape the gumstrip and the paper bubbles, or maybe the gumstrip I'm using just isn't very good.

Anyway, I primed the paper, because I plan to use oil pastel and I'm still not sure whether it's safe to use this on unprimed material or not, I seem to find conflicting information when I try to do a little research. So I primed the paper with a mixture of acrylic gesso and acrylic paint (white with a little blue added to give a cool tint). I leave the brush marks in the gesso, so when it sets it gives a nice tooth to draw on. I hadn't planned on making more than a few marks in pencil, but I enjoyed using pencil on the rough surface, and I thought that making a tonal drawing might help me make a more rounded piece, finding the tonal values would help hold the 3 photographs together more convincingly compositionally. I've never worked this way before, but then to a degree art should be an on-going experiment, shouldn't it?

The photograph of the board and source material at the top of this page isn't my studio by the way. I'd love a studio, ideally one with a glass roof and a window looking onto the sea, here maybe, but I don't have one, instead I make do with finding space anywhere I can, mainly on the bed in the spare room, or in the evenings, I join Mum in the living room and work in front of the tele'. Part of the beauty of visual work is I don't need silence, not in the way I do when I write. At the moment I enjoy listening to Radio 4 in the box room, or watching (well listening) to DAVE on Freeview, Mock the Week, QI, Have I Got News For You, Never Mind The Buzzcocks, entertainment while I work.

Here's where I work sometimes, when I can, on the bed in the spare room!

Anyway, I gave the graphite drawing a quick burst of fixative, but it's still coming off on my sleeve, so I decided to give it another coat of gesso, just plain acrylic gesso this time so it sets transparent and locks the graphite beneath the surface.

I'll start working on this next, just got to think how I'd like to do it.

NEW ARTORK - STANDING STONE ON THE NORTH YORK MOORS

I begin by combining 3 photographs I took with my digital camera on holiday last September in North Yorkshire. I love the textures of the moorland, the scree, the heather, the broken down tracks, the muted colour and the sense of wildness, despite the fact that, as you can see in the photograph on the left, you are never that far from civilisation. These little scraps of wilderness manage to be comforting and forbidding, lovely and austere at the same time. G and I were following a walks leaflet, which we had bought from the wonderful Moors centre, a fascinating place with permanent informative displays about all aspects of the North Yorkshire Moors, as well as changing exhibitions of moorland inspired art. I was interested and surprised to learn that far from being the totally untouched and natural spaces I had always believed they were, the moors were actually man made, and the result of agricultural development. The standing stones, many of which litter the moors, are thought to have been in existance for thousands of years.

I decided that, instead of basing my new picture on one photograph, I would challenge myself by combining several of them, as I have done before, many years ago, when I was an art student. Despite feeling that I'm a little rusty as an artist, I began with thumbnail sketches and very quickly worked up a rough graphite sketch in 2B pencil.