Reflection
on the past week, 17th April 2017
Dériving in Burley
My arty friend Michelle and I had
been pondering a possible collaboration and we decided to go for a wander, a
mini-dérive as it turned out. We set off from the University when I broke up
for Easter on Maundy Thursday, and wandered. So even though we had a definite
starting point, we weren’t sure where we’d end up.
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| Grate stuff |
I mentioned to Michelle, Tina
Richardson’s advice to “see the familiar anew” and even though we started out on
the University campus, that’s what I did. Walking with someone else, who
perceived the surroundings differently to me, meant that I saw things that she
picked out that I would have overlooked. A good example was the many different
grates and manhole covers on campus, all with their own design. I even found a grimy
corner of campus that I’d never seen before, and a bit of Woodhouse Moor I’d
never walked on.
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| A quiet corner of campus |
Leaving Woodhouse Moor, we drifted
down towards Cardigan Road. We chatted as we drifted, commenting on the
surroundings, where might we go next, what did this used to be. I also felt
much less obvious and self-conscious than when wandering alone. I enjoyed being
in this old part of the city, now mainly a student area, but with lots of
lovely Northernness still to enjoy. My favourite part came last; the abandoned Burley
Library, painted a lovely blue that was peeling back to reveal red. So many
layers and shapes.
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| Burley Library, detail |
Developing some ideas
Initial ideas I jotted into my
phone after the walk:
- Something with the shapes and that blue from Burley Library
- Drypoint of the wander - do a sketch first of interesting shapes, views, vignettes & combine
- Shapes from grates as a "peephole" into something else? Layer up? Acetates?
The following day, I did a
sketchbook page with sketches of the most interesting shapes and scenes. I’d
taken over 100 photographs (!), providing a lot of interesting source material,
and the issue now is how to combine these. Then I started combining these into
abstract shapes. There was a tree shape that I thought would give a centrepiece
for a possible abstract. I decided it would be interesting to put this as a
negative space but as I drew it it using a graphite stick and putty rubber I could
see that it was turning into the map from the Mabgate abstract paintings I did
for the MMU conference. Pressing on, I added a coal chute and some bricks but I
wasn’t sure what to do next, so left this to try something else. The coal chute is calling to me, though.
Ideally I would have liked to be
able to photocopy the sketchbook pages onto acetate, cut them up and play
around with them. It being the Easter weekend, College is closed so I decided
to simply draw layers of shapes on top of one another. Again, I expected that the tree would form a kind of
natural dividing line within the page I was working up, but I’m beginning to
get the sense that the tree is not really what I'm looking for. What seems to work
are the geometric shapes. These are mainly circles and this presents a problem.
It's difficult to etch a circle. I don’t have any dividers and a quick
experiment with using a compass with an etching needle in the place of the
pencil didn’t work. At the moment I don't have a solution to this but I will
see if I can acquire or borrow some dividers.
Other sketches
I did think I’d do some painting
today, but I wasn’t in a painting mood so I’ve been fighting my laptop and am
now on my third blogpost of the day. I’ve also been working on a sketch of St.
Paul’s Cathedral. I’m trying to improve my drawing and my understanding of perspective,
through action research i.e. drawing practice. I’m quite pleased with today’s
effort (St Paul's 2) although it’s not perfect. I want to turn this into a mini etch at some
point.
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| St Paul's 1 |
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| St Paul's 2 |
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