New Sketchbook Series

Because of changes in family circumstances visits to the studio have been a bit sporadic of late, hence the slow progress of the larger work, "Dream of the Rood". However it has not stopped me from working at home using sketchbooks. I usually carry an A5 hardback one with me; it is a useful "go anywhere" size but for now I've bought an A4 book instead, a proper desktop size and am using it to make mainly pen-and-wash/watercolour work working from a huge amount of photographs accumulated over the years. I'll try to keep this book for finished or semi-finished work rather than the quickly scribbled ideas. We'll see....

I visited Lichfield Cathedral in November last year. I find myself attracted to the  not so  obvious bits that tourists flock to, but rather the obscure and sometimes apparently neglected corners which probably have their own story to tell, making me speculate what these little niches are about. This is one such outside the South Wall of the nave. It must have served some purpose in the past.
All the pages are A4 as pointed out earlier and drawn on 150 gsm cartridge paper. Line drawing with a 0.3 mm. black ink micro-pen with watercolour.

 There is a ruined Saxon Monastery at Heysham Head near Lancaster. The photo was taken in August 2015 whilst showing a friend of mine from Cambridge around. We had a good afternoon at the site doing quite a bit of Plein Air sketching. I only completed this piece  this morning.
Drawn on A4 150 gsm cartridge paper. Line drawing with a 0.3 mm. black ink micro-pen with watercolour.

Dream of the Rood update

Detail of the latest development in the right hand panel of Dream of the Rood. Note the vertical ans horizontal cross hatching.

Dream of the Rood - update

Slow progress made even slower. My wife took ill at the end of August. Consequently I can't get to my studio as often as I'd have liked.
Here's the work so far. All three windows (or lights as they are called in the stained glass world) now have the images in place and it only remains to put in some fine line detail. That could take up just as much time as the work so far.

The work is on a sheet of 300 grammes per square metre smooth drawing paper.

In the meantime I have taken this opportunity to work at home editing the many sketchbooks I've accumulated over the years and intend to show some pages from the past here.

Work in Progress (2)

 The Dream of the Rood: commencing the right-hand panel. This will primarily consist of broadleaf trees. The left-hand panel will be made up of conifers.

Detail of the centre section of the right-hand panel having had colour added.

Work in Progress (1) - The Dream of the Rood

 Two sources fed this idea. First an Anglo-Saxon poem, the full text of which can be found here. It
speaks of the crucifixion story but from the cross' point of view. There are extant artworks depicting this where the figure of Christ is stretched out on an actual tree rather than a constructed cross as would have been made by a carpenter. The other source is a pagan legend where Odin, - to become the Allfather, - had to undergo an ordeal whereby he was fastened to the tree Ygddrassl. It has been suggested that the closeness of these two accounts were instrumental in easing the Saxon and later Nordic peoples into Christianity. Add to this the sight of the sun partially eclipsed by a foreground tree and we have the basis for this ongoing work.

Influenced by the stained glass work of Thomas Denny I decided a on a design set on three lancet windows but as I don't work in stained glass, I've opted for a pen and watercolour piece which should have a degree of transparency. The centre panel is complete and I've made a start on the right hand one. The idea is to have conifers on one panel and broadleaf on the other. In the foreground a kneeling figure contemplates the vision of the Rood (tree) in the distance. Often the forest reveals some hidden gem in gaps formed by these tree avenues, and not all of them are necessarily man-made.

Detail of the foreground figure. Clearly  meditative, though I've left the form deliberately vague.

Current Sketchbook Pages

 The most Recent Detailed Drawing in the current sketchbook having worked from a photograph taken during a holiday in Gatehouse of Fleet a couple of years ago.

 Pein air pen and watercolour sketch done during a recent visit to family in South Wales just twenty minutes walk from their house.

Plein air pen and watercolour sketches in Arnside near Lancaster on a glorious Bank Holiday weekend.

Previous Sketchbooks (6)

St Ives 2001. Significant in that this was a first visit to Cornwall and in December too. Certainly avoided the holiday crowds. There were a number of subsequent visits over a four - five year period.

 Speed sketches made going down the M5 from Birmingham. It was all new to me at the time so my pencil, or rather the hand that held it, was rarely still. This is but one page of that journey.

Cliff-top Chimney at Cape Cornwall just a few miles up the coast from Land's End.

 Boulders at Clodgy Head at the Western end of Porthmeor Beach, St. Ives. The two skyline figures (who were there at the time) give some impression of the sheer scale of this.

Previous Sketchbooks (5)

Tunisia 2000 part two. The previous page showed work that was done in a static situation, i.e not bouncing around on a vehicle seat or the back of a camel. These shown below are essentially speed drawings done while "on the move".
I pencilled some comments on the page(s) at the time which should explain where I was.

 Roman City at Spietla on theEast coast some few miles south of Tunis.

 In the Desert.

Previous Sketchbooks (4)

Tunisia 2000. I'd just turned 60 at the time and I was given the holiday of a lifetime to celebrate.A tour of the country and some time in the desert. Within that fortnight I filled a whole sketchbook doing speed drawings whilst on the move on various means of transport from a coach to a Land Rover and even the back of a camel. Many of the drawings were rather rough because of the uneven movements of our transports across variable terrain. This group of  drawings are more finished as we had stopped at the particular venue so I could take my time and with a coffee to hand..... need I say more?
The first one in monochrome is done in water soluble pencil. The other three are pen and watercolour wash.

A corridor in a Roman Amphitheatre at El_Jem on the North-East coast. The Roman Remains here are remarkably well preserved, probably because of the dry climate and perhaps a lot of it may have spent a large part of the last two millennia buried under the sands of the Sahara.Who knows? Its quite unlike the Roman remains found here on this cold, windswept and wet island of Britain.
On many of these sketchbook pages I wrote down where I was at the time so some will hardly need further explanation.

 Douga lies in the far north of Tunisia, well out of the desert area. There's a whole Roman town here. It only needs the woodwork replacing.

  A Belly Dancer who obligingly performed her routine staying on one part of the floor just long enough for me to get the information down on paper.

Carthage. The Romans were not best pleased with Hannibal giving them a drubbing so they crossed the Mediterranean and demolished the Carthaginian town.There's quite a bit more to the story than that but even the ruins show that these North African people were no mean builders.

Previous Sketchbooks (3)

York. Easter 2000. No commentary needed here. The notes on the sketchbook pages are quite legible.
I might mention here I always use and A5 sketchbook so each page is 21 cm tall and 14.8 cm wide.

Previous Sketchbooks (2)

From the year 2000.

Northumberland. Some in the forest and some in the North Pennine region.

From Previous Sketchbooks (1)

I've  been looking through some old sketchbooks. Its really surprising the little gems that turn up in them. At some of them I catch myself saying "I can't remember being that good back then." But there you go, even surprised myself. Sketchbooks are by their very nature, a collection of the the good, the bad, and the ugly. Memories are evoked here; times in glorious sunshine or pouring rain. Lovely warm days and others where my hands are frozen into unfeeling claws. The next few blog entries will show some of them.

Let's start back in 1999....

 Plover Scar Lighthouse on the Lune Estuary.

 The Lune Estuary looking across towards Black Combe Fell across Morecambe Bay.

 Northumberland Forest Park.

 Staffa and Mull in the Western Isles.

A wet day on Mull but working in the comfort of a holiday cottage.

Sibelius' Fifth Symphony (2)

The completed work after so many preliminary sketches and the final layout drawing . I'll let the piece speak for itself. See previous entries for commentary.

Detail of the right hand side of the main work. You may need to zoom in to see the finer lines.

From the New Sketchbook

The start of a new sketchbook. Actually it was started back in January this year exploring ideas for "Not all who wander...".  But after the first few pages it has settled down into being a series of studies worked from photograph taken over the last few months. Often in our great British climate it is too cold to stand around too long doing detailed drawings on site so I tend to make rapid sketches then back them up with a photograph. These sketchbook drawings have been made in the comfort of home where its warm and gallons of tea are available. Sketches are on A5 paper.

The process of drawing like this has me reliving the time I was there and perhaps this particular sketchbook will evolve into a journal of my travels both near and far.

 A doorway in a ruined building in a mixed forest near Gatehouse-of-Fleet on the Scots side of the Solway Firth. The greystone walls form a natural frame to the greenery beyond. A picture within a picture I might say.

 A study  of some weathered stonework at Jedburgh Abbey about midway along the A68 between Newcastle and Edinburgh, About ten or so miles into Scotland.

Near Bargoed in the Valleys of South Wales there's a stretch of mainly broadleaf forest which has been left to grow wild though its close proximity to the town means wildlife is relatively scarce. Many of the locals walk their dogs here. However there are a few paths though this which are relatively unfrequented, like the one shown here. I like this area because it has something of a "Middle-Earth" flavour to it. Autumn leaves strewn along the path like golden paving. I mainly draw with graphite pencils of varying grades and use inks or watercolour to highlight features that stand out when seen with my own eyes but may become obscured when in a photograph.

More Satellite Pieces

Four postcard-sized studies looking at how the particular music passages fit in, or should I say hopw my drawings/paintings interpret the music.The music itself can be heard here.

Sibelius' Fifth Symphony

The Symphonic Music of Jean Sibelius invokes the spirit of the landscape of his native Finland. Extending northwards from the northern edge of the Baltic to deep into the Arctic Circle and is a wild landscape of moorland, lakes and coniferous forests and for much of the year, snow. Sibelius is reputed to have said his Fifth Symphony described a walk in the snow with the empty  sky relieved by a flight of geese (or was it swans?) passing overhead and he felt his spirit soar with them.The final ten minutes of the work strongly alludes to this.
When I was younger I often walked through a similar landscape in the Border Forest area of Northumberland; especially in winter. Granted the Sitka spruces in Northumberland are an imported species, making up a much younger forest than its Finnish counterpart. Another essential factor is that unlike the Scandinavian forests, Northumberland's is man-made. It is arguably one of the the largest, if not the largest  man-made forest in Western Europe.
Needless to say it has the same "feel" about it as the Nordic pines; - especially in winter.
The above black and white line drawing is a layout of the idea. The elements of the picture are meant to echo the  musical structure of Sibelius's work. This layout is on a sheet of A4 cartridge paper. Another sheet of Fabriano 50 x 70 cms  is stretched on the Artech  board and the first pencil lines drawn. I will show this as "work in progress" at a later stage when some of the lines have been inked-in thus making it easier to see on a screen.

Meanwhile, some satellite pieces are evolving as I work out some of the detail. Some of these could, I suppose, be little works in their own right. These are postcard(ish) sized being 11 x 16 cms and on Bockingford paper in some cases or Fabriano. This one here is made with Daler's FW acrylic inks using a watercolour technique. The stave is the opening bars of the finale as played by violins played at allegro (fairly fast).

Then the flight of geese. Played at the same speed but each note is double the length of the quivering violins' [notes]. This majestic scene is played by the horns in the orchestra.

The tall pines reach up and point to the enormous sky. The musical stave is in place but I have yet to add the notes. Likewise these foreground trees need to be developed further. This post card is far from finished. A work in progress within a work in progress. I was working on this particular piece late on last Tuesday afternoon when I had to leave it. Dinner would soon be on the table and I had to catch the bus home across town.

The Dream of the Rood (2). A page from the current sketchbook where I've developed the initial idea posted earlier.Here I'm looking at how it might work as a stained glass piece set in three lancet windows in a church. 
No particular place in mind except that this would be an ideal setting.
Tom Denny's stained glass work is the obvious influence.