The sound and sites of drawing and walking

Distant England, cover image

Introduction

In the following words I shall tell the story of walking in Snowdonia over a four day stay in Capel Curig. I set off with clear intentions to experience walking in this remote landscape with the possibility of a diversion into somewhere unknown or a chance occurrence. As I move through this terrain I will look, listen, notice, respond, connect and explore the impact of walking, drawing and memory. I will examine how drawing might enquire and communicate the little differences I find that could reveal a link to specific place.

As I travel along this path I will be discussing my reasoning and purpose in more detail through a gradual expansion into a wider culture, returning with knowledge of elsewhere.

Soren Kierkegaard goes for a wander at the optimum pedestrian pace of three miles per hour he considers this to be the speed the mind functions well at.

But unlike Kierkegaard being ‘so overwhelmed with ideas he could scarcely walk’
I hope to bring this story back to the individual reader.

To continue reading see pages - The sound and sites of walking and drawing

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

 

 

 

 

Drawn on Site exhibition

Skirting it

Skirting it, inside the shop, following around the joint between floor and wall until it becomes a drawn line that outlines the edge of this space. Draw and move on, draw again, changing position changes viewpoint, passing an object alters its position, the room moves around me. I apply rules to the drawing - draw everything below this line, mapping all shapes that interrupt it. Objects that intersect this outline now become part of the floor plan. The rules are difficult to follow, I must switch thinking, cutting out the brains overriding recognition factor of pre learnt understanding. Objects and floor resettle, transferring onto a single visual plane. The necessary analysis, makes an interesting drawing exercise on pure observation, helping to understand this visual switch. Changing the rules, as you now control the way your brain sees and makes connections.

Draped drawing - time is connected to distance.

Ceiling pipe

Alison Carlier's impressed lines on paper

Skirting it, five corners

Passing By

Drawn on Site

I have been given the opportunity to take over an empty shop for a one week drawing residency. Invited by Transition Dorking, a voluntary, environmental group I will be drawing on site in the shop throughout the week with Alison, another MA Drawing student. We have decided to make work directly in response to our surroundings, passers-by will be able to pop in and see how the work progresses, hopefully it will.

Day 1.

Wondering how to make drawings, surrounded by these bizarre silver striped interior walls and feeling awkward drawing alone in here with my back to the open door. Eventually I made a word piece called Passing By.

Passing by

Trolley and two green carriers
White bag tucked under his arm
Tweed and a book
Blue waterproof and orange carrier
White stripes and blue backpack
Striding and swinging shopping
Red top and black briefcase
No-one
Blue raffia and rolled mat
Grey hair and green mac
Two up, two down
All black with checked scarf
Blue and blue stripes
Green bag, brown bag
Two matching apple green macs
Long mac and white carrier
Small boy swinging shopping
Two in black with one bright green carrier
Chatting ladies and shopping trollies
Three carriers and a grey jacket
Clattering shoes, swinging a bag
Pushing mobility trolley, slowly
Quickly, two large boxes on his shoulder
Return of red top with two new bags
Black coat and large white paper carrier
Two together, red cotton bag between
All in black with papers and huge black bag
Turquoise legs
Pink legs
Two brown coats and two sticks
Speedy, spotty trolley
Traffic sounds
Two pass quickly, big strides
Plastic covered pushchair, purple coat pushing
Four up, one down
All brown, hood up
White ear phones, white bag
Balanced orange carriers, striding
Small in pink passing zebra umbrella
Slow walk, swinging wide cotton bag
Three under one large black umbrella
Red top, grey shorts… postman
Two, woolly hoods up
Four down, mostly in green

  Thursday's drawings

Friday, We are both surprised and excited in the direction the drawing has taken, just curated the show for tomorrow. 

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.

Walking and Drawing, connections through landscape

 

A brief synopsis of essay and drawing

I wander, progress, uncover, connect and navigate – walking, noticing, thinking.

This path has evolved in time with a purpose and with the rhythm and movement of walking.

I focus here and there and stop, drawn by the physicality of structure or space. I remain standing to sustain the physical energy; the mental attitude; the immediate response, making marks that relate to a visual directness, rejecting the single perspective viewpoint as seen when looking through a window, or at a photographic still frame as if in Claude’s glass.

I walk, I draw from observation to find things out, searching for little differences that can communicate and reveal a link to the world.

How is the landscape seen; what elements might remain in our memory, connecting again a viewer and the landscape?

I look for this residue of differences that might shift perception and open a new response for the individual viewer.

 

 

 

View sketchbook here http://flic.kr/p/dxZ6pn

 

Walking and drawing from Mortehoe to Morte point, drop down to Rockham Bay, find strange wavelike rock formations, walk up to the sharp blades of Bull point and Baggy point. The next drawing starts where rock layers of two continents collide, buckle and fold, I draw, sitting next to an ancient iron chain. Carry on to follow the coastal path up to Spekes Mill waterfall, past a contrast of old burnt wood, fresh green and bright orange. I stand concentrating on the rhythm of the patterns as the water rushes down. I notice a strange effect caused by the afterimage, motionless surrounding cliffs appear to shake and vibrate in sync with these rhythms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drawings, photo's, montage, from rhythms and movement of water.

"Only observation is the key to understanding". Leonardo

Click on image to enlarge

'How to' illustration in old book - drawing ripples

Swell Montage -  cut photographs 

 Sliced and recombined, sea swell photographs - disturbed and disrupted flow. 

flow-control-obstruct along the River Mole

 Photograph 1. stepping stones

 Photograph 2. ripples

  Photograph 3. weir

  Photograph 4. stir

 Photograph 5. pour

Swelling of the Sea, Furthest West - The Atlantic Ocean. Thomas Joshua Cooper 1990

 Sam Francis blue composition 1954 - oil on canvas

Joseph Beuys is concerned with looking at matter and energy, fixed and fluidity. Principles that organise and other manifestations of force in the universe.

He is exploring drawing in ways to evoke energy in his "Drawings after the Codices Madrid"  Leonardo Da Vinci.

"The energy of the drawn line creates a symbiosis between the life of the mind and of the thing being depicted" Beuys

Joseph Beuys, Unbetitelt, undatiert, Datierungsvorschlag, 1945. Collection Museum Schloss Mayland © Joseph Beuys Estate/VG Bild-Kunst,

Meeting Stephen Farthing

Notes on a talk,
the italics are my thoughts

Stephen Farthing talking about his work as the CCW Research Professor in Drawing.

Starting with a small drawing of a sort of ancient fort or burial ground Farthing explained how he is trying to understand all drawing through making a map or plan about drawing itself. He initially placed fine art in a central position on the landscape and all other types spreading out, reaching towards the act of writing which is set near the horizon. He later moved fine art to the outer circle of importance.
Searching for ways to organise his ideas and locate areas of flow he developed a type of underground map to describe connections as a Taxonomy of Drawing.


He discussed drawing as 2D representation, showing an example of an aeroplanes flat, outlined shadow, that should not be classed as drawing because it is made unintentionally. However a vapour trail heart, constructed by two planes as they fly in arcs through exact planning and measurement is drawing. 

The heart image is a beautifully line, drawn in a transparent filigree the line dissolves in a fragile rhythmic pulse.


Drawings can be definitive or instructive, derived from observation, memory, mind and imagination. 

He gave an example of possibly the greatest drawing ever made, developed by a mathematician. An invented sundial that shadows the movement of planets, then translated into time using the kinetic element of a pendulum, this is made as a tonal drawing.

Sundial invention



 Originally drawings may have developed from scribbling but physical gesture is probably the real beginning.

Stephen Farthing is looking at all methods and reasons for drawing. His Taxonomy of Drawing divides into two.

Conceptual  -    Drawings that need to be read via the rule book:
Maps, football pitch, Maori tattoos, because they are complicated and need explanation to enable other cultures to decode them. Roads developing c1920 have become massive drawings when seen with a birds eye view, a highway code is required to understand them.
Where do pathways that mark out routes on the landscape fit here?

Pictorial -   Turner draws a boat on a choppy sea, the latter is signified by rhythmic marks, developed through a keen observation into his method of seeing the world.
We understand the boat as we have learnt to read edges of things, therefore the water is easily understood.

Turner's waves and boats sketch

Farthing’s map is a conceptual drawing but he also makes a pictorial version.

Two plan chests labelled Conceptual and Pictorial.
You can choose the correct chest to store any drawing in but first how do you decide if it is a drawing and to do this, is it important to know who the drawing is for?

To categorise, it is important to ask first what was the point of that drawing?

A question discussed later - Is labelling valid?

I wonder if there is a grey area between the two, in which drawer does the abstract drawing fit?

The games afoot

The games afoot...that line again  (ah that’s where it’s from).
Drawing workshop at Henry 5th RSC rehearsal studios.

Action.
Actors move around, scenery, steps and tower change positions. Lots of atmosphere to capture, I layer and repeat figures to show movement. If a character returns to the same position on stage, I can add more detail. The Shakespearean actors love to show of, making good body shapes. I concentrate and quickly record the stronger angles, speed of drawing changes my way of working. The director remains quite still, he has a stabilising effect on the image.

                   

 

 

 

Later on at Tate Britain

 A very scary place, Tate Britain if you haven't read the blurb on the Mike Nelson installation.

 BUT wait... don't read it, if you're going, it's much better to know nothing...that’s the point, you should enter totally unaware of what you might find!
( see more later)

Ok, now a bit of the Romantics show to recover. Oh connections... more Shakespeare.

Thomas Stothard's Shakespearean characters



 

Shakespearean Characters exhibited 1813 This assemblage of Shakespearean characters is from the most popular plays of the time. Stothard is painting what people like. (1755-1834)  The label says that he demonstrates his literary knowledge and also flatters his viewer.  Something to keep in mind perhaps but today you have to add a little more.