Sunday morning.

November 22, 2015

People watching. A coffee, a guilty pleasure and a window.

Having just finished blurting on my laptop (something I might show here at a later date), I take a swig and stare. Outside the hustle and bustle of the winter market - people moving to and fro between choices, or anxious to be elsewhere; stall holders hunched over goods or projecting outward to entice another sale.

Taking a bite I unfumble my sketchbook from where it is wedged in my inner pocket and pick out a pen. I let my eyes wonder and my pen starts to react: a hat here, the slope of those shoulders, a hair do, a pair of glasses, a zig-zag crease in fabric or the angle of a head ducking against the wind.

I love drawing people like this - there is no expectation, after all they will keep moving! It's all about the first line, getting an impression - making the mark on the page. A glance, an instinct - the hand moves - a spark is captured.

The more I sketch, the more a style grows - illustrating the scene, commenting on what I see - instict letting my hand move with freedom, finding lines and squiggles that grow out of the observation. Are these studies for a later painting - maybe?

But more, it is with each glance I reconnect - remind myself that I am a part of the world around me. I find patterns in spaces - see connections in flickers of emotion, and absurdity in the dance of inconvenience as people find new ways to navigate the familiar.

My phone rings. I find a way to bring the line to an end. I finish the coffee. Time is up - chores and tasks call, and I answer.

Against the grain.

November 19, 2015

Scooping up the crumbling remains of a rashly bought mince pie (Savoury- I'm not going there yet), and trying not to drip either pastry or gravy down my front, I realise I only have ten minutes left of break.

I jolt my eyes open and quickly realise there is no time to map out the negative of reflections of light on the river, nor the intricate detail of the ship yards in the distance - dappled and disguised through the shade of an icy evening sun (perhaps something like a previous attempt:

Instead I fix my eyes on the abandoned jetty in front of me. Warnings tell me not to enter, but don't stop me from looking for the detail.

Time is ticking - so I focus on line, knowing I'll get sidetracked, but at least giving me some hope. Quickly I put in the limits of the drawing- lines down the sides. Using the knots as plot points I get them in before charting the grain among their centres of gravity. Inevitably some shading creeps in, but by now the few grains of sand are nearing their completion and I have to tug my brain from its absorption with the detail.

Relcutantly I bring myself back to the pressing; though my mind has taken time to breath - to suppose, as even in the capturing of this and that, I find that my thoughts have gone here and there.

So later I find myself picking up on a shape, the flow, something random - and wondering. It's nice - or maybe not?

Remembering Wordsworth.

November 18, 2015

It was windy, the rain came down and it was dark. So I left the house wrapped up in my coat, hunched, and face firmly looking down.

My brain was properly befuddled, putting up a force-field against the world. Lights from traffic blurred past as I froggered across the road. Perched against the bus stop I squinted at news articles on my phone - before giving up to let my eyes de-focus for, well, the day.

The bus journey is short - and the only interest comes from the anxiety caused by steamed up windows, and the chance of getting off too early - or too late. I judged it perfectly however, and set my shoulders against the elements, then got off.

Normally from here it would be auto-pilot, but I turned to walk in to work, and stopped. The sunrise spread out silhouetting the buildings, colours stretching and wrapping around each other. The sky yawned itself awake - tingling along the nerve-endings of clouds. I woke up.

I wanted to sketch - but worked loomed, tutting. I had no choice but to grab a quick photo - trusting to Wordsworth's phrase - "emotion recollected in tranquillity" (a phrase that stuck from much wrangling with the poet over A-levels).

Tonight I sat down, anxious to sketch my memory for later. Looking back at the photo, feeling the contrast between the morning and the sudden burst of colour. Picking out the shade and sweep of the scene and capturing all that in the movement of the brush - not just the sight, but feeling.

And when the time is right I will remember.

A second glance

November 17, 2015

I've always liked bars. I know that sounds obvious, but I don't just mean the drink - although that's a big part of it. Nor is it the romance and ambience - although - yup, once again, I'm a sucker for that sort of thing. I know I order out of mythology and tradition, as much as cos' I like the taste. Maybe a reason why I'm partial to scotch, or bourbon or other stories in a glass.

No, I mean the design - the sense of placement of the bottles, the way the lights reflect and bounce one from another. The way the geometry interacts with the history and the alchemy of the liquids inside.

So it was inevitable that one day I'd find a way of capturing and expressing this feeling on canvas; and typical of me this began with a glance - noting the scene; then a second glance - quickly sketching lines, shade and absence.

We'd been for "champagne afternoon tea" @jesmonddenehous - Caroline's birthday present, and deciding on an extra drink I naturally found my eyes 'running the bar'. Then I - galant as I am, I felt the need to run it again with a quick pen sketch. Caroline ordered another glass.

Working in pen and ink - with a scene you know will be colourful making quick notes are essential. From this I was able to narrow down the scene - sort my composition, and play with the idea of the interference of absence - how the space around defines everything.

More doodles refined how I wanted the piece to grow:

Each time I saw more and more the way in which the brush strokes had to work - how the lines had to break, and where I wanted the bottles to define and blur.

Working on the canvas the paint was applied quickly and instictively. I'd lined up some of my own bottles to refer to the colours and refine shapes - but this is by no means from life, the colours were impressions - echoes and repetitions of each other.

Letting the first attack dry I felt it was too rigid - too concerned with form and perspective. Last night I returned to the scene and let fly with sweeeps and splats, dollops and whooshes - seeking the moment; after all, to look is to witness the movement - the journey of light.

But maybe that's the drink talking.

Scratch that.

November 16, 2015

The sky is wintery tonight. Wisps of cloud puff purple shades over the iced orange of the evening sky, and clouds stretch and overlap, then dissipate to imaginary horizons. A crescent moon hovers over these flash-gordon landscapes; up where the purple turns to violet, turns to grey.

I like the colder snap. It matches the gloom, and makes each breath that much sharper - somehow giving more taste to the evening - or at least a tingle to the mouth. The darkness draws in - like charcoal over turquoise.

I have been full of doubt today - wondering what I have left to give - wondering if my best ideas have been left in the gutters and cul-de-sacs of my past. I think up grand ideas for light sculptures or installations and pull them down in exasperation with myself - scoffing at my attempts before I have made them.

I intended to re-focus this blog around my sketches and work, and now I look in frustration as I once again use the weather to focus my feelings and thoughts - I feel myself becoming a cliché (even if I am self-aware). I find myself thinking in the scratch of pen on paper, quick strokes - light at first, dancing over shape and relative size, then stronger - darker strokes as I dig out perspective and settle on line.

I have not been able to draw today - so I look back through my doodles and rough sketches. I settle for a sketch of Thai Tea unfurling as it steeps. A memento of a lovely meal. It is not my favourite beverage, though I am reliably informed of the various health giving properties it contains, but it reveals more than it seems, and I like the way the markings of the pen play with light and line.

It is not perfect, indeed the final composition owes itself to mistakes I made when idly marking the limits of the glass. But as with much of my work, and my life, the mistakes set the terms of the finish, and so it is not the mistake, but what I do with it that is important.

A thick head.

November 14, 2015

I have a thick head today. Last night I wandered and wondered around the festival of light at the Durham Lumiere. Buildings were reinvented, creatures of the imagination let fly and boxes of testimony opened. The night found me contemplating new science fiction sculptures, and paintings layered with the filters of time.

Of course such an event sends the mind racing - waking my critical faculties and my sense of awe. My surpressed competition rises as I grab hold of the tail of an idea and try to wrestle it into something I can subdue - obscure scribbles appear in my sketchbook, notes for the future I hope.

Yet on the same night the violence in Paris happened.

I never feel the right to comment on such things: I feel sorrow and shock; I feel anger and frustration - even fear; and I know that the immediate response is never informed, never complex enough. The perpetrators were exactly that - the perpetrators; not a race, not a culture, not a religion - they were those who chose to do it, and it is no less awful because of it.

Senseless violence is appalling - and numbing; and when it happens so near it seems so much more to us. But all it takes is a quick scan of the papers, or of social media, and the regularity of such brutality around the world becomes clear. It was horrific, but it was not unique.

As I said I have a thick head. I find it hard to process how I fit into the world. So I draw. I draw to look, to know - to try and understand. To try and understand a world of imagination and horror, of the immediate and the distant and a world of light and such darkness. I cannot know all this - my only hope (and some might say my cowardice) is to try and know myself a little more.

A painting's story.

November 12, 2015

Well here we go - as promised the excitement about the painting sold yesterday from @theglamorousowl in Newcastle - in the form of an origins narrative...

"Quayside" started off as speculation.

The summers day was warm, and I was hot having walked throughout town looking for moments to sketch - to capture.

Not being at my physical peak this meandering had left me thirsty. Along the Newcastle quayside are many bars, but the heat, and the view led me to the 'Pitcher and Piano', to this table, and to a cold pint of (continental) lager.

Settled, I began to review the days snapshots, the thoughts and scribblings dotted through my sketchbook. Between glances and sips I found my eyes following the geometry of the bridges, the vanishing of the buildings and the fences and street lights. Soon my pen was working its way over the landscape - searching for the nooks and crannies of line and shade, forming the patterns and shapes flowing across the horizon. I persevered - trying to balance between quick strokes hinting at movement and the anxiety of over-working the line. It was only with the addition of people - filling out the pavement, that an image took place; now the eye entered the picture and I found myself pleasantly surprised.

I let the sketch nag away for a couple of weeks. The movement of the people an abstraction that played against the strong lines of the various bridges that crossed and re-crossed the river. Though it was probably the flickering pattern of the lamps - growing from a distance that I itched to use.

Sitting with my watercolours, the sun of that day poured into the colours; sweeping with movement over the paper - splashes of stronger colour contrasting with softer hues that let the brightness through. Drawing over the image - strong lines jumped out, the sketch strokes became solidified, and the play of ink built up the depth and energy of the scene.

With the image added I set about taking it away: first with a knife - scratching away at paint and ink - marking the texture of the paint, and hinting at the colour left in flecks and streaks; then with tip-ex - providing an energy and subliminal direction for the eye.

At this point I struggle to stop - knowing I must, that holding back leaves more that I can add; yet the temptation to do everything with each medium is at times overwhelming.

Now I'm a shudder away from a tantrum, knowing that each stage needs to build, to enhance (or rectify) the stage before. I'm really impatient and the idea of having to redo something at this point drives me crazy - so these last touches are where I alway believe I'm going to throw it away. It's a massive relief when I can finally put down the pen, walk around the house, and look down on a finished picture.

Then there's only the signature... Christ!

Hiding in plain sight.

November 11, 2015

Sold a painting today - which is extremely exciting, but too much so as the evening closes in. So I will investigate my excitement further in tomorrow's blog. Tonight I've found some more half formed thoughts which could do with an airing. So here they are...

Scritching. That was the sound - a soft scritching. Persistently pushing, nibbling- wearing away the ground. At first I thought I was hearing things - for when I turned there was nothing to see.

The ground was barren; rocks scattered - the reminants of an old civilisation, or something.

Walking on it seemed louder. Scritch-scritch - as if whatever it was, was becoming more impatient. Again, looking around, I saw nothing - only the whispery sand that scuttled, wind-blown, over the landscape; drifting against rock and brick - submerging history beneath geography. I trudged onward, the sun falling in front of me - the glare bleaching out the horizon.

Scritch! Scritch! The burrowing louder still. I resolved to ignore it - moving onward. The sound began to itch - scritching along my shoulders - finding where sweat swelled then trickled down my spine. I turned. Still the land held nothing - no sign, no semblance of life or presence.

Around me death - desert. The sun beat down on the ground, and nothing survived. Only shadows lay across the floor - strange echoes of what was before - stretching further into the past as the sun sloped down.

I stood - looking... waiting for my past to catch up with me.

Here be Dragons.

November 10, 2015

I have a dragon in my mind. I see its eye opening, and its nostrils twitch as it inhales softly - as though thinking.

But now it raises itself - up on its haunches, writhing around - as if finding the perfect pose. And for a minute the dragon is a line - patterning its squiggle around space - like an early piece of animation.

There now! The line stops, curling up and over, down and along - spreading limbs and wings as it goes. Geometry steps in - circles and triangles overlapping and intersecting, hewing bone and flesh from two dimensions - allowing light and perspective to carve a stance as I try to realise the creature in its entirety - understand how it exists in imagination and physics.

I look into the eyes - weighing up the emotions - juggling style and purpose - with finally the coin flip landing on the dark side of cartoon. Squinting again, I hear the rustle of leather of the wings, the build of flame in the stomach and feel the shimmer of the scales on the skin. I scribble down these hints, these half thoughts - refining lines and intention as I go.

I love the sketch lines - they're where I find I think most clearly, where I realise what I meant. The whisper of a line and the blott of pause are the grammar of my mind, and though this will not be a finished piece, it is where the first breath was taken.

A point of view.

November 9, 2015

Kinda stuck for a blog recently - but I came up with this short story/musing, so I'll go with that - with a view to kick-starting the ol' imagination...

The spider slowly lowered itself from the ceiling. Seemlessly letting out its silken spin, legs scuttling as it climbed through the empty space. Every now and then it would stop, then retract as if the web had got stuck in its inner works - hooked on a cog inside its stomach perhaps? Then hauled in at great speed as the machine was sent into reverse.

Dale sat, ready to undress, mesmerised by the up and down that played out in front of him. The noiseless click-clack of the spiders legs rang out in his head.

Tantalisingly the spider made its way to almost the floor. Dale watched the legs, waiting for the spider right itself and take its first step on a new horizon - when again the yo-yo sprung, and the spider whizzed up the strand - once more pausing before beginning the process of reeling out the web again; patiently asserting the flow of the stream - ensuring the correct attention to detail.

Dale shook his head. He knew he couldn't wait for the spider to finish. He began to undress - folding up the day's clothing, pulling on his pyjamas. As he tugged his t-shirt over his head - momentarily losing his orientation in the whirl of arms and holes, he wondered if the spider had been watching him with the same fascination.

His huge frame froze in stillness, chest rising and falling with the intake of breath - changing the air currents in the room - causing the silk to blow this way - then that. Knotting and twisting the thread so that the spider needed to attempt running repairs. Then the mountain rose - limbs unfolding like continents, and swirling the room so that the spider - fearing the coming onslaught, cut the cord - relying on its ability to glide even as the world turned upside down. Too late to worry about an escape route - the web had gone; now only the search for shelter as the surface shook.

Dale pulled his t-shirt tight and blinked. The spider had gone. He looked around the room; but there was no sign. He looked back at where the silk dangled - now curling around itself as it floated in the draft.

He shrugged - in balance he felt he wasn't surprised.