IN WITH THE NEW, IN WITH THE OLD

A belated Happy New Year to anyone reading this blog!

After a rest over Christmas and the New Year I'm thinking of projects new and capping off projects old.

PROJECTS NEW


Here's my first work in progress of the new year. It's the piece I began just before Christmas, and it's provisionally called Private. It's a pure pen and ink piece on heavy grade watercolour paper, which is really nice to work on. I'm using larger pen nibs for this piece, partly because I want to progress this work as quickly as I can, I think the quicker I can get a feeling of having something under my belt the stronger my chances of actually achieving anything new this year. Also, the darker, bolder marks lend themselves nicely to the dark swirling lines and forms of the pine tree. Spiky and yet inviting at the same time. I like contradictions.

PROJECTS OLD

I was so pleased with Ink & Steel, and relieved that I'd managed to take something through from planning to exhibition stage. This may seem like a small thing to some impartial onlooker but it was significant for me, for a number of reasons.

I had some really nice feedback on the exhibition, but I was anxious at the end of it, that I had to close my exhibition on the morning of the 10th December instead of the end of the day. I really couldn't time it otherwise, and if I'd have known I would have put 9th December on the poster rather than the 10th. What made it worse for me was that I was told that a lady came in to see my exhibition after I had taken it down, which worried me no end as I really don't like to disappoint anyone.

So I had this idea, that it would be nice to make an on-line version of my exhibition, a kind of belated programme, which I will put on my website as a PDF to download and browse at leisure.

I've begun this now, and hope to have it up on my website, all being well, in the next week or two.

Spring Time

It's been such a lovely day today, and I've tried to take advantage of it by breaking from progress on Listen to plant a few seeds in the back garden.
Also, because the sunshine in the room where I work was playing shadow puppets on my work.


As well as Listen I've been making steady progress with my still unamed piece...



The sririt of spring has gotten into me well and good, and I've begun to grow another new piece too. Just the bare bones at the moment.

Small, again, and on Ingres paper.


2b graphite pencil and coloured pencil.

But what a pain...my pc is really playing up (no new news there) and now I can't access Dreamweaver to update my website.

I much prefer soil, seed, paper and ink to keyboards and screens at the moment. I wish I could spend longer in this real world.

Soil, seed, paper, ink
debris under fingernails
grime beneath the keys.

March brings breezes loud and shrill

...stirs the dancing daffodil...

...or the dancing pen, in my case.

I've managed to make more progress on Listen, and here it is.

This was progress as it stood on Sunday, since when I've managed to work more on the tree in the far left, here's how that area of the drawing looks now.


I need to work more on the foreground tree in order to finish, I was intending to push it forward more today but I've suddenly developed the frights - fear of ruining my work. So I'm going to leave off working on Listen for a few days, and sew new seeds of new work.

Here's something I began on Tuesday evening. I took the photograph I'm working from a while ago, and made a couple of preliminary studies from it recently. This is the work I did on Tuesday evening, very very brief beginings.

I'm so glad spring is finally on its way. Here's a little proof - a beautiful flower (I think it's a form of miniature Iris) bejewelled with raindrops at Durham Massey's Winter Garden.

Gosh, isn't it dingy today?

I found it hard to get going with my drawing this morning. Every week I set myself an aim, this week's was to finish my long mossy tree drawing. All was going well until this morning when I sat down and I guessed straight away that I'd struggle today. I have this creeping fear sometimes that makes it difficult to work. I've had this both with my drawing (not so often) and my writing (often), basically I get so indecisive that eventually I end up faffing about for hours and the precious day trickles away.

Luckily today music came to my aid. I've loved music all my life; classical, rock, indie, folk. When I was in my teens and twenties I was heavily into the music of my parents' generation - the 50's and 60's. Now I'm in my 40's I suppose you could say I'm into the music my kids would be into (if I had any). I've never believed in pigeon holing anyone. I hate to be categorized myself (when people try to do it, they invariably get it wrong) and I do my best not to do 'unto others' as I'd rather not be done to myself. It goes against my grain to see anything as simple. If I hear one other person say 'women can't read maps but they are naturally caring...' I'll scream...

I've continued preparing some paper for a drawing I want to make. It's another experiment, and a development of the drawings I made last week of my Poinsettia.

Here's the last drawing I made, before it began shedding leaves and curling up at the edges like a well read paperback.

And here is something very old.


In fact, I've no idea how old it is as in those days I don't seem to have either signed or dated my work. It's an old oil painting of my Mom, and judging by the settee (the one before the one we have now) it could have been done anytime pre 20 years or so ago. As you can see from the impasto I was heavily into Van Gogh at the time.




Van Gogh is still one of my creative heroes. His writing, like his art, is full of compassion, endeavour and honesty. Three things I value very highly indeed.

Seeing the Van Gogh letters exhibition at the Royal Academy is definitely on my 2010 to do wish list.

New and Old

Firstly, two posthumous 'happy bithdays' - Elvis Presley and my Nan, two formative figures of my childhood. I lost my Nan almost exactly 24 years ago next month and I still miss her. Love to you Nan, wherever you are.


I've begun another drawing based on the mossy trees photograph, the one on which I based the drawing I finished earlier this week. In that drawing I left large areas of the foreground trees as white space and now I want to make a drawing that explores the texture and patterns of the moss more thoroughly.


I also like the figurative presence the trees in my drawings are taking on, almost in lieu of people or dramatic actors. As I began working on this drawing I started thinking how my rendering of texture and pattern often becomes stylised, and how I might play around with this for decorative effect. As a student I loved using collages of sweet wrappers and crumpled or torn paper, over working the rough texture with pastels and ink. I'm wondering now if this is something I might incorporate into my drawings. So far my attempts at adding colour to my drawings haven't been very successful, or the results haven't been what I've wanted. Adding colour to my pen and ink drawings definitely takes something away. I like the drama and the crispness of black and white and colour only seems to dilute this.


I began my new drawing yesterday, though I was already pondering a drawing of this design when working on the first one. I didn't stretch the paper this time, only stuck it to the plywood support with masking tape. I treated part of the paper with a thin wash of clear gesso mixed with white gouache, which gives a nice gritty and crisp surface to work on. As I laid down my initial pencil marks it struck me that it might also provide a nice surface for a pencil drawing. I've an idea for such a drawing, but it involves sitting in an open doorway and it's too cold for that at the moment!


I've also worked a little more on this old drawing of a Cornish harbour scene. Incredible to believe I began it last decade! One of these days I might finish it.

Finally, there was a touching obituary of Craigie Aitchison on Last words this afternoon. Although I don't know much about his work, his was a very distinctive style and by the sound of it he was quite a colourful character. How I envy people who can just be themselves without any constraints of self-consciousness or worrying about pleasing others. Just being 'yourself' - it's truly a gift.

Something new, some things old

'Running Away', my current work in progress.

I didn't start work on my drawing today until the best part of this precious November daylight was already burned out. Yesterday I found it began to get difficult to see what I was doing as early as 2 o clock, today was a little better but not much. There was plenty strong sunlight this morning as I painted the inside of our front porch doors, so much so I actually had to work wearing sun glasses to stop my eyes from watering!

But I guess I'm getting to that age now when I need more light to see the fine detailed pen and ink work I like to do and also to make sense of the messy photographs I tend to work from, they're printed out on my desktop printer and my current piece is proving a real pain to make sense of, I can tell you!

I had an idea that I'd like to post an old watercolour here to complement my new drawing, I couldn't find it amongst the inch of protective dust on top of my mother's wardrobe, but I did find these oldies instead. I'm sorry to say they're not in a portfolio but an old carrier bag, still, they don't seem much the worse for it.

Morcambe Seafront, 2004. Mixed Media on Watercolour Board.

It was on holiday in the Lake District in 2004 that I began to find my old enthusiasm for visual art again, it was October and the colours of the changing trees, the evocative mist and the sunsets were just glorious. One evening we drove down to Morcambe, it was out of season and the sprawling sea front was down at heel in the way I always find gloomily attractive. The sunset was a glorious thing. A few days later I bought my first serious coloured pencils, the ever so expensive (and now discontinued) Signature range from Heaton Cooper, a truly wonderful artshop in Grasmere. When I got back home I began these pieces, though I put them away in disgust some time later, totally disatisfied. Now I come across them by accident, they're not so bad I suppose.

Morcambe Sunset, 2004. Mixed Media on Watercolour Paper.

I think these two charcoal drawings date from around 2001/2? I'm really not sure. I know that I hadn't drawn much for a while and they're quite clumbsy.

Graham Snoozing, Charcoal and Conte Crayon on Cartridge Paper

When I was at Poly' I began a practice of doing a Christmas self-portrait. The best one is hidden away somewhere, I'll have to try and find it out. I used to draw myself quite a lot in those days, usually in charcoal and Conte crayon. I exhibited one of them many years ago (not a Christmas one this, but a summer self-portrait) at the Mid Art Show, which was then held at the Dudley Museum and Art Gallery. When I made the drawing below I hadn't drawn for a while and I had problems maintaining my confidence as well as my motivation. It's a pretty lame drawing really. But I have been thinking that I'd like to make a December self-portrait again this year, time allowing. Maybe I'll blog about it here. Maybe.

Self portrait, Charcoal and Conte Crayon on Cartridge Paper