Last week, I went to
Barbara Rae at the
Richmond Gallery, on the road that goes up to the side of
Richmond Hill. This has
to be one of the greatest views in England, looking out across the Thames towards
Twickenham and Hampton Court, especially in the autumn with the changes in colour.
Barbara Rae is a fantastic artist, her work is landscape and full of colour, but also with the structure and the ambiguity that I love. It combines with a sense of the place, but also make it more that just a response to the colour. It
imbibes the place with an almost mystical feel. So the following day, I had to get out with my own paints and to start the buidling the sketch book that will be about a walk along the North Downs, which I wrote about in
Fever.
Started with gouache paintings, that still need reviewing at this point. I had to wait for the paint to dry and so got out my other smaller A5 sketch book to draw with felt pens. At the time, I was not so sure about this piece, I had wanted to show the stark red of the tree in the front as my gouache picture, but the way there was a round 'clump' of trees straight ahead caught my interest. Instead of the cut of the hedge and the resultant smooth lawn in front. I lefthe the trees in the foreground to breakup the image.
The yellow was a vivid green, but here the sky was sunny and it was a good way to light the whole image, without layering too much green. I liked the way the shadows underneath these 'clumps' cut away the ground.
This was the fourth picture of the day, I still feel ambivalent to the orange, but I didn't want to leave the picture empty with white. I have done that before and when I put down the the purple into the top tree line. Although, the trees at the bottom of the picture is more problematically, perhaps a more flatter layer would have been better rather than rapid marks.
The attempt here was to have the circular objects lined up, so the shape would run from the tree line to the foot. Having found the purple successful in the tree line, I felt the orange was required to give it a complimentary colour. As I wanted to have a magenta for the topmost tree, again successful in the other picture.
I should have tried to spread the orange colour with a wash of water as I had plenty, sometimes I have added spit to an image. A technique of using the elements to hand when we went out sketching from college of using the materials to hand e.g. earth, mud, rubbing grass direct on the page to give it a 'real' sense of colour.
Shepherds' Crooks. Sticks and Stones. Step Insides. Kings and Queens. These are some of the titles I have come up with for the games that maybe used in creating this sketch book. If by chance again, I picked up this book called
Collage Journeys at the library; that was giving me ideas of what I was attempting to do.
A further idea of two points that can be traverse during the day, but then returning at night. The link here is in Egyptian Mythology with the god Ra guiding the Sun back through the Underworld to raise again in the East. This leads to ideas of geometric shapes, with have the sun raising to it highest point and then during the night to lowest point. Here we have square or rectangle or by linking the points coming up with a circular movement. The elements are starting to be formed and organically various ideas are being found.
Another idea, that has occurred, whilst typing this piece, is the way a book moves from a starting point and goes towards the end point like a journey.
