About water: From sketches
The stream is an obvious constant of the tight, narrow, twisting valley that informs my current work. Despite this, until recently, the water has only featured indirectly. This has changed with changing seasons, as the stream rises and falls with downpours and dry spells, so with my sketchbook. The pages are now filling with water-related line drawings and annotation. All describing the short, relatively unremarkable sections of that small watercourse.
These sketches and notes are what I take back to the studio, working initially through small scale works on cartridge paper (two examples in this blog post)- and then on larger sheets of watercolour paper.
Sketch for water drawing. Charcoal and chalk on paper 41 x 30 cm
Sketch for water drawing. Charcoal and chalk on paper 41 x 30 cm
The resulting drawings explore the flow of water, the obstructions, the water coursing through narrow straits, juggling pebbles as it flows- the leaves, branches, soil and pebbles pulled along with the current as well as the bubbling, rocking and roaring that that accompanies it.
Review and new work
Since my last posting, I’ve developed my drawing and painting; a sample of which below…
Untitled. 2021. Charcoal and chalk on watercolour paper. 76 x 56 cm
This is one of the largest pieces I’ve made in a while, and is on a single full sheet of watercolour paper. Preceding this, lots of drawing on a smaller scale, and associated paintings. This perhaps needs a bit of context, so here goes…
I make art about landscape, most recently about my immediate surroundings. I make expressive drawings and paintings that document local landscapes and my responses to them.
For many years I have explored favourite landscapes across the remoter parts of Britain through painting, drawing or photography. My regular local walks are now the starting point for my art work; taking notes, photographs and sketches. These are the source material for the drawings and paintings that I work up in my studio.
The paintings and drawings are often dark and near-monochrome. They are dominated by large organic forms, which emerge from dark grounds. These are memories of my local walks, developed by variations on the 'exquisite corpse’ game (in which I am the sole collaborator). Cut and sectioned charcoal drawings reassemble fragments of landscape forms (rocks, falling water, horizons, clouds) but in disrupted combinations. Expressive marks also meet and merge suggesting eyes, faces and figures. These non-topgraphical readings are more evident in more recent, larger drawings, where suggestions of some written observations and recollections also appear
These works document the experience of passing through this enclosed space, and offer an opportunity to reflect on living through constrained, unnerving and uncertain times.
Transience and persistence
This series has only one finalised print. Its story is one of persistence. The first prints I made from this plate were unsatisfactory, so I put it to one side. Having worked on different approaches to other images, which I thought would help here, I pulled it our again. However, I couldn’t replicate the crispness and definition achieved in earlier impressions. It took me a whole day of step-wise process alterations to work out the problem. It was the plate being clogged with old, dried out ink. I left the studio thinking the day’s work a failure. Nevertheless, I wrapped up the prints and took them home. The following week I pressed on to correct my error, first cleaning the plate thoroughly.
I didn’t open the first tissue-wrapped prints until I was later pressed to make a quick decision. I was due to visit a former colleague, recently admitted to the nearby St Cuthbert’s hospice. As he was always interested in my artwork, I wanted to show him a few recent representative prints.
On opening the package I had wrapped in the studio, it was clear that my error had become a strength. The indistinct image from the sparsely inked plate was exactly the right treatment for this transient subject. It was one of the half-dozen prints I took to show my colleague, and deserves to stand alone in this collection.
Ash Leaf, Low Laithe Dam 28 May 2018 15:22. Photo-etching and monoprint. 2020
Just to complete the story the later impression of the ‘rectified’ printing is shown below, a far more distinct image, but much less of what had originally impressed me.
Ash Leaf, Low Laithe Dam 28 May 2018 15:22. Photo-etching and monoprint. Proof. 2020
And the the original photo-etching alone:
Ash Leaf, Low Laithe Dam 28 May 2018 15:22. Photo-etching and monoprint. Proof 2020