A little bit of serendipity here. I did a precise drawing of a rose window as a component of an ongoing project and added some watercolour to supplement the pen and ink work.
It simply wasn't going to work so I left it and next morning in a half-hearted effort to salvage it I (almost) threw some ultramarine at it then mist sprayed it with water and went to the studio coffee room. 
On return to my workspace the painting had dried out and actually struck me as not too bad and is now something of a work in its own right rather than a component part.
300 gsm smooth cartridge 35 x 50 cms
Serendipity indeed.

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.

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 (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.

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.

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.

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.

Brahms' German Requiem Part 2

Completed at last! Its only taken the best part of four months to complete this 70 x 50 cm work on a sheet of 300 gsm Fabriano5 paper. Black ink line drawing with FW acrylic inks for the more painterly aspects.
This is part of the art/music project. This piece is titled "Brahms' German Requiem, second stanza". The stanza is part two of a nine-part work. I intend only to do two of the stanzas. There are other composer's works in the pipeline.
I've already made preliminary sketches for "Elgar's Dream" (Gerontius), Mahler's second symphony "The Resurrection" (Finale) and the Finale of Sibelius' fifth symphony.
As ever the work is intended to portray the imagery that the actual music sounds generates but also the patterns of the written music on the stave

Current Main Project

"German Requiem Part 2" (after Brahms) is progressing, albeit slowly. It is a large-ish work on Fabriano 5 paper, 300 gsm, 70 x 50 cms. and being drawn with micro-pens and several ink glazes being applied means this is not going to be finished in anything like a hurry. Indeed, some thirty or so hours have been spent on it already and there's still a long way to go.

 This is an overall view of the work so far. There are changes and improvements taking place as the thing progresses.

From time to time in all my work where full colour and monochrome are juxtaposed I take a photo (top picture) and desaturate it to check the tone balance. A useful guide for when adjustments need to be made, on paper, not digitally.

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 Some of the trees are half-hidden in the mists and I show this by cross-hatching. The depth of tone varies according to what the lines are made with and some side-experiments are necessary as shown here on this postcard-sized piece. It is seen better when zoomed in.

Here a detail of the tree roots on the right hand side foreground. Again, zooming in will show how the use of technical drawing methods are being applied. It is a far more time-consuming  than freehand but it serves to show more starkly the  differences between the two techniques.
Although the entire piece is an interpretation of the second stanza of Brahms' German Requiem, while doing the cross hatching shown here I was listening the Bach's Cello Suite Nr. 1 which was ideal for filligree lines drawn with a 0.1 micro pen. For the coloured sections I use diluted FW ink and a ruling pen.
Modern acrylic inks with a good old-fashioned traditional pen. I like that.

Sketchbook Pages (5)

Two pages eof studies for the "German Requiem" pictures.

Sketchbook Items (4)

I've recently returned from a holiday visiting family down in South Wales which included a few days excursion  on the Isle of Wight. Just little more than a hundred yards from the house in South Wales there is a path that leads into an oak forest where many of the trees have twisted into fantastical shapes making the place look like a set for a "Lord of the Rings" or "Hobbit" film. Most of the trees are stunted and moss covered sessile oaks which I think established themselves on  the embankments of a defunct railway  that ran from a long-gone coal mine towards Merthyr Tydfyl. These trees have grown seemingly unmolested for years. There is evidence of coppicing along the main path which is now a cycleway.Recently the area has been designated as a park. Parc Cwm Darran.

           

                 Twisted oaks. Graphite drawings tinted with water-colour pencils.

Also some trees on the skyline. 6B pencil drawing.

Not forgetting some work done at St.Catherine's Point on the Isle of Wight.

Various pencils: 0.7 mm, 2.0 mm and 3 mm leads ranging from B to 4B.

Bach B minor Mass: - the Drawing.

The title looks like it should read "Bach B minor - the Movie" but no, its a drawing on 300 gsm cartridge 50 x 70 cm. It is the finished piece developed from the study sketch, - along with several others, - shown previously. Close examination should reveal some of the technical drawing aspects I've used. The German Romantics have played a role here, the painter David Caspar Friedrich and the composer Robert Schumann as well as my own interpretation.  I spent lot of my time when I was younger walking the more infrequently visited parts of the Northumberland and Scottish Border areas so quite naturally, I suppose, such features as coniferous forests, moorland, standing stones and ancient ruins.  I think I've inadvertently walked in the footsteps of the solitary wanderer featured so much in both the artist's and musician's footstep to say nothing of the writers such as Goethe and Schiller. Yes it is all very German and it is my second language to boot.

But enough of that. Sufficient to say this is a drawing using black ink and micro pen for the line and the "painterly" component is coloured inks and  brushwork.

The Sanctus in Bach's work has a filigree quality which I've reflected in the  tree-tops and the tall straight tree-trunks provide the rhythmic bass which could be the huge diapason pipes of the organ. But let's not get too bogged down in explanations. I'd  prefer you to make your own interpretation(s).