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