it was the early morning shock of seeing a thin film of ice on the inside of the windows that prompted a couple of snowy walkabouts this week... for some exercise, some fresh air, to warm up, an excuse perhaps to think more about and reconnect with this rural landscape...
a hill and some snow, acrylic on paper, 8" x 12"i carried with me a sketchbook (or three!) but, for a change, i took some small tubes of acrylic and a few offcuts of card. why on earth go out sketching in this inclement weather? well, the intention was to go for a bracing walk and the opportunity to do some outdoor sketching seemed like a good idea at the time... i just needed some white, brown, blue, a little yellow ochre... (you can view last week's before the snow winter field sketches here)...these three small sketches are about 5" x 16"
[click to view larger]i discovered a new footpath which i had not seen signposted before, perhaps because all the surrounding vegetation that would have concealed it had died back. some farmers, it seems, don't like to draw attention to the public rights of way that circumnavigate their fields. this particular footpath began at the roadside - it was a quick scramble up a steepish, stepped incline through a small thicket of elder, hawthorn, briar, bramble and the like, which soon thinned out onto a small footbridge across a ditch, which opened into the corner of a large field - regimental stalks of harvested maize pricking through the blanket of snow..
winter field with stubble, 8' x 22"i walked a narrow path between the hedgerow and the broken lines of sown crops, minding the occasional black hole which indicated a rabbit burrow. in the snow i could see the pitter-patter pattern of animal footprints, probably a dog i thought but i could see no human companion footprints - were they the trail of a hare, a fox or muntjacs perhaps? the hedgerow seemed to have shaken off most of the recent snowfall and so it exhibited an interesting patchwork of textures and colours when viewed against the snow - from the sepia hues of damp, dead wood to the musty grey-black of dead nettles, small patches of fading green to grey, the auburn brown of tall docks, shades of bronze and tarnished copper on the edges of leaves, the prickly hawthorn branches dotted with red berries...
field and hedgerow, acrylic on paper, 8" x 12"the line of the hedgerow led slowly uphill, then turned an abrupt corner at an oak tree - and hereabouts, sheltered from the chilled midday air with a scattered carpet of acorn husks underfoot, it afforded a clear view of valley ahead. smooth white fields, lightly traced out by their boundary hedgerows, sloped gently to the south and east, a distant cluster of trees merged into a mist of many layered greys. to the north the field's straight crop lines seemed to converge at a point near the flat horizon, with only the faintest delineation of trees to suggest where the land ended and the sky began...
winter field, acrylic on paper, 8" x 12"some people assume that suffolk is, in the main, quite a flat county, but this is because the most travelled routes follow more even ground. walk a little off the beaten track and the vistas become much more undulating and expansive - made even more appealing to the senses when there is snow on the ground. all seems for a short while quite serene, quite still. snow softens the sounds and disguises the blemishes, it sculpts, smoothes and redefines, drawing out the best features of a seemingly natural geography...perhaps on reflection it was not such a good idea to use acrylics as they did not dry properly in the ice cold air. to stop the sketchbook pages from sticking together i sandwiched them with maize leaves, powdery bark and even clumps of snowy soil, all of which had added some interesting textural effects by the time i had headed back. something of real substance to work with, so i applied more white acrylic here and there, the remains of soil and the blurry smears of paint became the tangible traces of walking. i rather like that they turned out this way, incomplete and unrefined, within each rough gesture or mark is a brief thought or memory that relates to the experience - exhibiting the very spirit of a brisk walk in the wintry, white landscape...these two sketches are 8' x 22", on black card - it is (or was) a photograph album...
[click to view larger]so, these small studies have really become remembered landscapes, they no longer exist, the snow has now vanished, but we have been warned that the snow will return...i often remind myself that i have become something of a cave painter - i see things (discarded, redundant or dead things, mostly!) and then i retreat to the studio cave to make art out of the experience. sketching in the landscape seems to be a means to re-engage but also to step back a little, to take in the wider view......
on drawing some boundaries
just a few sketches of some local field marks and boundaries, on a little walk down the lane...
these scans, or rather the actual drawings, are each about 5' x 7", in wax crayon and indian ink...
any excuse to make some marks on paper...
when the wind blows
Another abstract in an ongoing series of small mixed media works on canvas...
[Pompeii, collagraph and painting on paper and canvas, 5" x 5"]Wikimedia led me to this pictorial reference for the above abstract (titled after its original creation) since these works are entirely about colour and texture, yet with a little analysis they link back to another place, another time... in this instance, to the remains of a villa in Pompeii...
Wall frescoes in the house of Lucretius, Pompeii (image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
The red (Pompeiian red is also a pigment) and grey stripes appear to reference the patterned wall frescoes of the ancient villas, and of the stonework and structure of the interconnected streets and avenues of ancient Pompeii.Many years ago I visited Pompeii... Although I didn't realise it then, the ancient relics and the eroded, weathered facades of Italy, Greece and Turkey were to become a creative muse of sorts... I would love to go back to these places, with the benefit of wiser eyes... but I would probably take far too many photographs...
These are from an old photo album (I wonder how many people still compile photographs in albums these days, after the advent of digital photography and online sites such as flickr?). That's me in the lower left picture, drinking from the water fountain (of youth!)... which prompted another visit to everyone's favourite photo album Flickr to see how many others had recorded this very same location at Pompeii...
Google Maps has recently visited Pompeii too, so I persevered with Google's virtual Street View and retraced my steps back to the original site of the water fountain...
Even with these many thoughts of distant travel on my mind, I would like to be homebound for a while... (if only to get on with some more artwork).I had a horrid drive home from work the other evening, in what at first seemed to be sporadic snowfall - but about two thirds into my homeward journey it turned into a heavy blizzard. The falling snow quickly compacted to a sheet of ice under the weight of the rush hour traffic, as the main road had not been salted or gritted. My journey, which normally takes about an hour, in the end took three and a half hours. The queue of traffic slowed to a near standstill about ten miles from home, as the drivers ahead were finding it increasingly difficult to drive with any degree of control or safety.The road was becoming near impassable - after two hours slow-driving on the most nervous of tenterhooks I didn't want to have to drive any more. A couple of miles further on and I decided to abandon any hope of getting home by car and parked my vehicle on a wide bit of the roadside verge. I could see that some cars ahead were sliding on the ice and a large articulated truck had got into difficulty going uphill, stopping any flow of traffic - it was fast becoming an accident zone (and I do blame the council and those who said the snow and ice wouldn't amount to much). Lots of cars were stuck in a static queue (myself included), occasionally crawling forward feeling the ever-present danger of the inevitable wobble and slide.After I had parked up, I walked along the snaking line of the (now) stationary vehicles, and, as you do in a crisis, you empathise with their dilemma and then share a little rant about the council not gritting the roads (yet again) - but this time it was serious. Taking a slightly safer snow-underfoot path, I walked the half-mile or so into the nearby town, where a good friend and now saviour (after providing a much-needed cup of piping-hot tea) decided they would take the risk and drive me the last few glacial miles to my door - the drive was quite dicey in places, but arriving home has never felt so good.I declined the early morning lift to pick up the car on the way to work, and decided I would instead walk the four or so miles back to the roadside verge later in the day. It was very cold but sunny as I set off and much of the snow had already melted - belying the ice-frightmare of the night before. Aside from the hassle of passing traffic (climbing high up onto the verge is always the safest procedure), the walk was quite relaxing - and not entirely without incident. A few minutes into this bracing midday stroll, I passed the small boatyard by one of the nearby lakes and was instantly captivated by the most unusual tinkling sounds coming from beyond the roadside hedgerow. A strong breeze, blowing through the hidden tangle of ropes, wires and chains of the boats' fixtures and moorings, had made an uintentional but quite magical melody.
Click to listen to the breeze-created tinkling sounds from the boatyard...[audio mp3="http://www.jazzgreen.com/journal/swfs/boatyard.mp3"]The same wind that brought in the blinding white flurry of a blizzard the evening before, that forced the wind-chill that plummeted the temperatures to below zero, that created the perilous sheets of ice on the roads, the very next day quietly sang to me when no one else was around......This weekend is the last chance to see the contemporary art exhibition, Elements: Man and the Environment, at the Forum, Norwich (read more about my work in the Elements exhibition).