I cycled ten miles yesterday... passed these farm buildings on my return (first noted on the outward journey)... not particularly thrilled with these sketches as they were quite rushed; about fifteen minutes or so for the first two, less for the last one...
[barn and sheds, seen from the roadside]
[barn buildings, near a bend]
[farm buildings, viewed across corner of a field]These sketches are about 8" x 11". For anyone interested in my sketching methods, I used watercolour pencils on lightly dampened paper (I carry a tiny jam jar of water). These sketches, although appearing representational, are not what I am striving for - the regional art scene is saturated with representational landscapes. It is more to do with working quickly 'on location' which I think re-awakens a different part of my creative brain, quite separate from an isolated studio practice largely driven by concepts and processes. I am interested too in the prevailing art aesthetic-sisation of mundane, rural scenes. I am pondering whether to use my amazon voucher to purchase a book on Andrew Wyeth's landscapes...
Andrew Wyeth, House near Chadd's Ford...Today, after visiting the Harleston Gallery, I stopped by the local allotments - there will be an art & allotments themed exhibition in the future... I captured a couple of quick abstracts, looking for bold interactions of colour, both of which (here) contained the complementary colours blue and orange...
and here, I just thought the arrangement of the three different water butts placed next to the potting shed made a pleasing composition, a still life of sorts...
...The HWAT Mini Artworks & Showcase exhibition is now open...
I am not sure that my painting Fenn (pictured left) looks quite right hung so close to a small etching and a life drawing, but it is currently in a fine gallery and not on my own wall (which is nice)... the wall of mini-artworks looks really appealing - many art bargains to be had at only £25 each...
Click here to read about HWAT's Mini-Works and Showcase Exhibition...It's also the last weekend of the Artworks exhibition at Wingfield Barns Arts Centre
more field studies [sketchbook]
thirty five landscape studies in an A5 sketchbook, 17th to 22nd April 2010...
from realism...
[sketchbook study - corner of a field with trees and hedgerow, 6" x 8"]
[sketchbook study - field with crows, or rooks 6" x 8"]
[sketchbook study - marshes 6" x 8"]to the abstracted...
[sketchbook study - ploughed field pattern striations 6" x 8"]
[sketchbook study - field/hill 6" x 8"]from day...
[sketchbook study - view over marshes with sky, 6" x 8"]to night...
[sketchbook study - field with row of poplar trees, 6" x 8"]
blue sky, and thinking [again]
It has been very warm and sunny all this week, with a heatwave forecast for next week. I am finding this quite odd, when contrasted with the knowledge of a volcanic dust plume from an Icelandic volcano drifting grey ash clouds at high altitude above most of Northern Europe. With no incoming or outbound flights in the UK for the last few days the skies have been unusually quiet - just as nature intended. We are grounded, but the weather has been quite lovely... wish you were here...Wanting to take a slightly philosophical stance on nature's subtle intervention (the best kind of art), I was delighted to read Alain de Botton's musings on a world without planes... Heathrow, he writes, would become a museum, [and of planes] we would stroke their steel dolphin-like bodies in museums and honour them as symbols of a daunting technical intelligence and a prodigious wealth. Modern air travel has destroyed any sense of geographical distance, the physical experience of moving through a landscape, or even the metaphysical space and sense of the passage of time that our travelling predecessors would have gained from crossing land and sea... perhaps the exception would be the hot-air balloon...I was amused by the notion that Botton was the writer-in-residence at London's Heathrow airport - how could he possibly think clearly with the constant noise of take-offs and landings? Of course, he actually resided elsewhere, it's just a creative job description..Clear blue skies or grey clouds ahead... (some animated cloud drawings)[the art of idleness, part one....]read more about the art of idleness...