Walking and Drawing in Snowdonia

Four days, walking and drawing on remote mountains in Snowdonia, focusing on the rhythmic sound of walking and sounds of the surrounding landscape through the Zoom mic headphones. I first notice how easily I climb the steep gradient to the lake, listening has changed the emphasis, drawing attention away from the usual dominant visual clues of distance. Walking in silence with a new focus on listening has created a different atmosphere and altered my experience of the landscape. Confusingly, it has become internalised and at the same time a vaster space. It is quiet, sounds are distant, the mist occasionally lifts over the ridge and sun glints through from behind it. I stop and draw at a rest point

Up towards lake

My focus shifts; switching from listening to seeing, the steep incline of the path becomes more physical, more demanding. By focusing on the rhythm of walking I hadn't noticed how quickly I gained height, the remote mountain ridge now dominates. I try to respond with quick drawings of the ever changing mists that cover and uncover the varied contours ahead. I recognise Turner’s problems and how he used the advantages of a misty effect to accentuate distance in his work, confusing altering and denying form he develops his idea with and in the mist. His structures do not merely describe what is underneath it.

Walter Thombury, The Life and Correspondence of JMW Turner

 

Drawn from the National Gallery- pencil on small sketch book Jill Evans

 

 

 

 

Writing and drawing connections

Drawing connections and my written paper.

Residue of differences

Charcoal on paper 

An array of left behind fragments relating to places I have noticed, lingered, paused and taken interest in - physicality of angle, slope, drop, gravity, space, structure or incidental aspect that catches my attention.The investigation and marks reflect a direct experience recalled, or recorded.

13 desiccated sparrows found in an unused woodburner, each frozen pose delicate and beautiful, requires critical observation. 





Shell drawing for Mum
She found this large, old and battered shell abandoned on waste ground, next to a grave yard many years ago and has always treasured it. After visiting Tracey Emin's She Lay Down Deep Beneath the Sea at Margate; I had a go with Emin's free blue wax crayon, the perfect drawing implement for this shell.
Here the rhythms and flow, echo Emin's loosely drawn figures . Blue appropriately connects shell and sea.


Gibbets Hill, Hindhead
These small quickly drawn rhythms in pencil describe this huge space. 
Turner walked and sketched here making many fleeting pencil drawings about the distant space, a subject he worked with throughout his life.                                 

A friend handed on these animal skulls, drawn here using a 60cm extended pencil, less control changes qualities of mark. The challenges in this method of drawing enticed visitors to have a go at my Summer Open Studio, the difficulties of making the drawing from a distance cancelled the fear of failure as expectations were low and skills of precision drawing unnecessary. A surprising number of visitors joined in and had a go, initially finding control of the pencil at distance, difficult but quickly discovering an alternative method to  achieve an interesting mark.

Drawn from the National

Walking through the gallery   -   click on an image to enlarge

Speed was essential to make these studies. I noticed when looking at the complicated figures in Carrado Giaquinto's painting that the less I looked at my paper and just let my eye follow the shapes around the canvas I could draw letting go of thought. My hand and eye made a direct connection and seemed to ignore any other thinking.

 

Carrado Giaquinto 1703-1766, Moses striking a rock

 

The action and rhythms of the figures and clothing, enhance the flow of water as it pours from the rock and down through the image, to the stillness of the smooth puddle in the bottom right hand corner.

 

This slowly spreading puddle looks peculiar but acts as if to contain the fall of the crowd in the bottom right corner.

The Tribute Money, about 1560-8, Titian

 

 

Rain, Steam, Speed, 1844 William Turner

" The artist delights to go back to the chaos of the world...all is without form and void; they are pictures of nothing, and very like". Hazlitt