Piddling about with drawing (2)

Other bits of "drawing homework" over the xmas break ...

Revisiting the first project, scaling up Playmo folk (in charcoal) and positioning them in a setting -

 For the setting, I digitally transformed a photo taken in Annecy, just to get a sense of what's happening in it -

For the large (A2) version, I was glad to be able to draw on a vertical surface, a nice big sheet of board that's been left leaning against my fabric cupboard -

The outcome is a bit blah and I didn't really find anything in the project that grabbed me, nor do the figures really fit into their landscape. But it was fun in a surrealistic way, and I did get involved in the drawing and do a lot of thinking and erasing along the way. It probably needs a darker area somewhere.

Just for fun, an aimless bit of dabbling with ink -

and sewing on some scraps of fabric. This felt within my comfort zone... just trying things out for half an hour - using the materials at hand, literally within arm's reach.

I've also been stitching into paper, with the aim of drawing the results ... that's ongoing, more later.

Threadends

Do you gather your threadends ... and if so, what do you do with them once the container is full?

The great tangle disturbs me rather - but the layers of colour are quite wonderful -

Ghosts of the unsewn. Or just another midden, ripe for a postmodern archaeology.

The east wing

Somerset House has some marvellous rooms. Those in the East Wing are often used for exhibitions - currently (till 18 Jan) the show is called Disorder: "The Prix Pictet aims to harness the power of photography to draw global attention to issues of sustainability, especially those concerning the environment." 

It's been going since 2008 and is worth 100K Swiss francs to the winner - in this case, Valerie Belin. This time, the network of 260 nominators from 66 countries recommended over 700 photographers and a jury shorlisted 12 artists from 7 countries. Since it was founded, the works have been exhibited in 34 different cities worldwide; Somerset House starts the latest round of exhibitions. The website, www.prixpictet.com, shows the previous exhibitions too. The Disorder photographs are impressive and thought-provoking, the statement by each artist brief and to the point.

But I meant to write about the setting, Somerset House itself - the way the rooms lead into each other ... this makes for a more intimate encounter with the photos, as you come to each new batch (two or three per photographer) fresh, no glimpses of them out of the corner of the eye. 

The East Wing is Victorian, and as you enter you can look over the parapet and see how far down it goes! King's College has an exhibition space way down there ... but our concern is with ground level, and here's a selection of doorways within doorways -

The Boro exhibition was held here in 2014. Somehow, it had quite a different atmosphere.

It's late...

...at Lancaster Gate ...

Poetry Thursday - Worm's Eye View by Andrew Walton

Worm’s Eye View

I love to wriggle through loam, my home;

I enjoy stretching through the soil, my toil.

I am not a stick in the mud, m’lud!

I am Worm – earthy, honest, tiller of land.

My band work tirelessly, day and night –

Make roots grow deep, shoots sprout towards the light.

Woodworm, wormhole, bookworm, earworm, wormwood.

This worm is for turning

over new leaves.

For turning the sod over and over

Burrowing,

Fertilising,

Nourishing.

All that was solid, I break down.

Blackbird hears worm’s earthy song

Dances to the beat, claws stamp along.

Vibrations travel through the soil

Earthworm, excited, starts to uncoil.

Squirms through the black earth

Surfaces – to an outstretched beak.

Worming, wormery, blindworm, worm food, meal worm, earthworm.

Protesting – pulled from the ground.

Blackbird puts an end to his wormy sound.

---Andrew Walton (via)

Looking for information on a drawing or print by Andrew Walton (artist), "Garden by Night (Poles)", I found another Andrew Walton - political poet. For more of his poems, buy his books or visit his blog.

The drawing (discovered in an exhibition catalogue and blogged in 2009) is in charcoal and is part of a series of Walton's Nightwalks from the 1980s -

An Oxford gallery writes of the artist: Andrew Walton has been painting for forty years.  His passion is landscape, particularly the landscape of the Thames Valley and Oxford’s Edgelands.  Walton has developed a language of painting that hovers between abstraction and figuration, capturing the beauty of the landscape that inspires him. He has strong form and a sublime sense of colour. Paring down the complexities of the scene before him is his strength.  Working en plein air, he may or may not choose to ‘fine tune’ in the studio. He speaks of fusing the seen, known, remembered ….. even sounds and smells.  Walton loves jazz, and at times his mastery of abstraction imparts a sense of musicality and synesthesia to his paintings where soft tones and playfulness abound.

Planometry

Another name for axonometric drawing is planometric drawing. It's good for representing interior spaces populated with objects without having to fuss with complicated perspective. I find the outcomes strange, but maybe that's due to my fixation on the pyramid shape? Looking back, this pyramid-thing started during my first encounter with the method, during the foundation art course ... and re-emerged during a module of the extended drawing course.

During the break I'm revisiting the modules and their projects, and spent a happy few hours systematically making more "crystal cities" - but this time cutting the pyramids open to show cross-sections. It was intriguing to get the floor plan right and the shapes overlapping pleasantly and the spires at a range of heights, and I was able to indulge in various surface treatments - ah the joy of colouring-in, even just with graphite, and the pleasure of rubbing-out with a sharp, clean eraser.

Cross-section with "luminous" lines

Holding the drawing up to the light led to a tracing -

 A light box was helpful, and various thicknesses of felt-tip pens were used -

 The thicker ones unfortunately bled into the cartridge paper -

Thinking, in the incomplete towers, of the possible effect of lighting

Two renditions, A4 size - might have to do "something" with one or other -

 Pushing on, pyramids within pyramids -

The intention was to have light edges emerging from a dark ground, but it was really more of a vague idea than a solid, thought-through intention. One thing led to another and after a lot of erasure and a lot of darkening, we found ourselves surrounded by Suprematist triffids -

Surprisingly sinister and terribly unsatisfactory - how should the shading go? Could it be a transparency/opaqueness thing, rather than dark/light? I can see several things that might be interesting to try, but still have other projects to revisit before classes resume next week.

Another of my aims was to try using ink washes, layers starting with the lightest and gradually getting darker.

These probably aren't finished, but at the moment I can't think how to take them further. Perhaps add the "shelves" to make the shadows make sense, and try to get the black background more even...?

Being able to use materials skillfully certainly takes practice!

Addendum: seen in a shop window in Marylebone -

Stepped pyramid of phramidal photos of snowy trees, very seasonal

Drawing Tuesday - stained glass at the V&A

So many interesting things in the gallery - the more you look, the more you see.

re-used glass looking like a landscape detail

glimpses of the courtyard facade of the building

Don't those dogs look 1930s? (Christ in the House of Simon)

Suddenly I sat down in front of this one -

Three angels visiting Abraham, 1530s

Getting the negative spaces, ie the leading, via much erasure

A light application of neocolour and discrete use of water-brush

Leading added with non-soluble medium, thinking of further colour to come

Some details added with pencil

Then suddenly it was time to stop!

Revelations -

Janet's section of "Entry into Jerusalem"

Joyce's "Sister Moon - Mother Earth" by Graham Jones; the diptych is on loan to the museum

Sue's 1918 memorial panel, designed by Leonard Walker; the top part was at the foot of the full figure

Janet B's Ethiopian censer (from the Sacred Silver collection in the same room)

Najlaa's detail of the Graham Jones piece, and a border panel

Michelle's corpus figure and a panel made 1309-1314 showing Agnes, Duchess of Lower Bavaria

You may recognise some of these ...

14th-century panels

sunlight and stained glass

On the left, the original (c.1375); on the right (colours altered by camera tricked by different lighting),
a version made in a short video showing how stained glass is made

Palomino Blackwing

A pencil of mythical, or should that be mystical, proportions. Discontinued in 1998 because the machine that made the ferrule for eraser was broken; then, phoenix-like, the pencil was revived in 2010.

Legendary. "Half the pressure, twice the speed" (thanks to wax added to the graphite). The erasers are replaceable and come, oh joy, in colours - including black.

As it says here: "Claimed by many to be the best writing utensil in the world, Blackwing pencils are famous for the quality of graphite, instantly recognisable shape, replaceable eraser, and the men and women whose works they have inspired throughout the years." (So ... name two? Ah, they do ... here.)

I love that they have special pencil sharpeners - and that there's a special edition gift set in a wooden box. Though as wooden boxes go, it does seem a bit pricey.

Cross sections

Jeweller Vicki Ambery-Smith makes rings and boxes based on real and imaginary buildings. Wonderfully detailed, some are cut away to reveal the buildings' construction and of course the interiors -

 The boxes too have interiors -

In the Sheldonian Theatre box, for example - which is all of 8.5cm high - the roof lifts off to reveal the seating plan etched into the base.

Thumbnails from vickiamberysmith.co.uk

Portrait of a two-faced politician

From the V&A's prints and drawings exhibition, Facing History: Contemporary Portraiture, which runs till 24 April. On 2 March there's a free lunchtime lecture about the exhibition.

What to do with the art you steal

"When you look at the world this way, there's no longer good art or bad art, there's just art worth stealing and art that isn't. And everything in the world is up for grabs - if you don't find anything worth stealing today, you might find it worth stealing tomorrow, or the month after that, or years later." Austin Kleon in a TED talk (here).

"Bad poets take what they steal and deface it, but the good poets turn it into something better or at least something different" said TS Eliot.

"Imitation is not flattery - it's transformation that is flattery, taking the things you've stolen and turning it into your own thing." (Kleon again.)

Two's a coincidence...

... three's a collection ... and four are a project -

Only twenty to go, and they can be baked in a pie.