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

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sketchbook thoughts

Sketchbook thoughts.   Click on image to enlarge

 

 

Drop pattern, watching it drip

 

Drop rhythm

 

 

 

 

Coiled and Twisting form

                                             

A shell is built from the inside out. A visual analysis of the space inside

Poem found in The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard
So now I have become a decorative drawing
Sentimental scrolls
Coiling spirals
An organized surface in black and white
An yet I just heard myself breathe
Is it really a drawing
Is it really I.

Pierre Albert Birot

Click on an image to enlarge