Not All Who Wander......

Not all who wander are lost. A line taken from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings referring to the the Rangers who drop in to the Inn of the Prancing Pony  from time to time. Something of a cross between a monk, a pilgrim and a wizard but this "wizard" is no Gandalf. I like the idea of these wanderers that  have no particular role except to hint at the main characters and the unfolding story.
This is the fourth picture of the set posted earlier. It too is on a sheet of A4, 200 gsm cartridge paper and is so far unfinished, - a work in progress. The main drawing  and painterly components are complete and there only remains the drawing in of finer detail. I'll be back at my studio to finish it in a few days time.

The initial study that sets out the idea. A postcard-sized pencil sketch with a 0.7mm micro pencil. The idea has been a long time in coming since I first conceived of it whilst taking a walk from Ambleside in the English Lake District up to High Sweden Bridge. I remember it was  a winter's day in the off season, - consequently very few tourists to interrupt my reverie.

Study for "Dream of the Rood"

Study of the tree envisioned in the "Dream of the Rood".  Drawn and painted on Fabriano paper 300 gsm. Size of image, 10 x 13 cms but here enhanced to A4 with increased resolution. As usual I used Daler FW acrylic drawing inks. To get an idea of the true colour I used Prussian Blue for the area surrounding the tree roots and for the the corpora, Vermilion with the merest touch of Prussian Blue added. The lines were drawn using  0.1mm and 0.3mm pens.

As the poem implies, this was a dream and to facilitate this I chose to have the sun just about peering between the branches at the top of the trunk and the corpora to appear as a trick of the light.

Its been an interesting little project and I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't stop there.

A Small Project.... perhaps

An idea came to mind to make four pieces of work that look back to Saxon and Celtic legend. As seen here there is the initial layout starting with postcard sized sketches along a line above the main pieces which are being drawn on A4 size 200gsm Daler cartridge paper. The photo on the left is a seascape placed over the original figure drawing as a reference for the sea component of that picture. The tree at the top is a study for  the work in progress below. The figure on the right is work-in-progress of a wanderer/pilgrim traversing a windswept fell-top.

The Dream of the Rood. A kneeling figure looks out from a chapel doorway and sees a vision of a tree bearing a cruciform figure. The title is taken from an Anglo-Saxon poem describing the cross, - or tree's version of Christ's crucifixion.

Seven Stanes. On the England-Scotland border not far from the western end of  Kielder Reservoir  stands a fell of that name. Seven stones do indeed sit on that summit but little or no hint of a ruined chapel and the trees are absent too. However, hagiographies and archaeological evidence suggests that the early Christian missionaries such as Patrick, Columba and Aidan built their chapels on the sites of stone circles. These places  had spiritual significance long before the Christians arrived. Stone circles are themselves pre-dated by avenues and circles of trees known as henges. I have brought all three elements together to given it a wraith-like quality where time stands still. I know when I've visited these places I could sense that timelessness.

Caedmon was a deeply religious man who worked alongside St Hilda at her double monastery in Whitby on the North-East coast of England in the 6th  century. "Caedmon's Hymn", written in old Northumbrian, is a paean to the glory of existence.
I hope at some future point I'll be able to feature the words from "Dream of the Rood" and "Caedmon's Hymn."  I have them to hand. Its really a question of finding time to set it out here.