Cartography - Stage 1

Cartography - Stage 1 - This has been playing in my mind for some time and just decided to get on with it. The 3 x 3 grid was already lay down for another picture, the graph paper was first and I was using a page from Pericles - where the hero was placed in a chest and put on the sea.

This idea of the lone helmsman on his own in a story, back to the Dreams of Deucalion ideas. The framing an image within its own frame, then again with border and finally the wooden frame. Again working with the book of hours and watching that change. I wanted to do something that would have a wider effect in combination.

Stacked away in a cupboard are some books waiting to be used. They are very old, discredited (?) books - Dictionary of Architecture, Geography, Guide to London, Old A-Z London atlas in Black and White. At the RAA summer exhibition, I saw a picture that was on graph paper with the archaeological dig drawing in an area of white paper (not graph). So using graph paper has been in the back of the mind.

By messing around with some titles, I came across one called The Mariner's Tale - a reference to Chaucer and Powell & Pressburger film, The Canterbury Tale as well. I might have mentioned how the Nave of a church came from a nautical term. Further thinking might me think of the village church, St Nicolas - the Saint from whom Saint Nick/Santa Claus/Father Christmas comes from. The idea of the a church as a ship on a sea of green in Surrey, which is a land locked county. Taking bits of places, words, drawing and putting them on the graph in a random order.

Trying to avoid being too specific and structured. I decided to just dive on in. Started with the central part. I was going to have the page at an angle, but instead I tore the page up down the sides and in thirds. Laid them out randomly and then framed with a heavy line.

I like the idea of a torn page and took the graph paper apart. Finding some old images, I wanted to use somewhere. I cut them out and added them in. I started to copy one in the corner, this led to the pine cones that I have collected as random seeds scattered on the paths or roads. This develop into the idea of cutting a hole into the page of the London guide. Should I put on squares from the London A-Z?

I preferred the idea to draw a round pine cone into the space. Then I went to down to bring in some other pine cones in and draw them into some of the area. Besides the pine cones, I have brought in the stone, another random object that I found, but it is split in half like a peach with a white rim.

Further drawing required.

Meeting Your Heroes - Part 2

The meeting with Michael Moorcock, Alan Moore and Iain Sinclair was recorded and is available through Moorcock Miscellany web site. The links are below.

Conversation

Questions and Answers

Also an article in the Financial Times about London and its memories.

Meeting Your Heroes

Monday 29th June

Discussion at the British Library about London with Michael Moorcock, Alan Moore and Iain Sinclair.

I have been a Michael Moorcock fan since discovering the Hawkmoon books of the Eternal champion. I have been reading Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian series. Why oh why has there not been an great adaption of these books, so influential for a lot of science fiction. There has been chatter about it, but only Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill's Book 2 of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen has come close.

Currently, working my way through London Orbital and fascinated by the area around Epsom, having a hospital for the mentally ill and how this can be 'lost'. So the grounds have been sold on for housing. Some thing to investigate and go to view. London surrounded by a chain of mad hospitals before the M25, but now threaded together by the tarmac link.

The evening was fantastic. I was sat on the front row. So they were sat about 3 or 4 meters away from me. It was like being part of a conversation as they chatted for hour. I had to hold myself back and wanting to comment to be part of the conversation.

It was a discussion on how all these layer of cultural reference could be picked up and used to create fiction. They felt the point really were the Beatles appearance and how the cultural elite had to give way. Lots of insults hurtled at Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim. They had a go at a lot of early sci-fi, as when MM became editor of New Worlds. How he went to buy a stack of America SF magazine and only found 2 or 3 stories he liked.

They had a diversion on how people picked up things to 'old' for them. Alan Moore mentioned the New Worlds magazine and how he could of become a stalker fan of MM when he was a teenager! AM gave an example of one his Swamp Thing stories which was pretty horrific and was one of the comics to have the Comics Code Authority stamp taken off because of the content. One of AM's fans came up to him and told him that the comic had been given to him by his Dad at the age of 8 for a coach journey gave him nightmares for a long time afterwards.

Having read a couple of New Worlds, I am not sure of the context. They talked about Williams Burroughs and his style, which I had come to via Philip Jose Farmer rewriting Tarzan by William rather than Edgar. Then I got a copy of the Nova Express and it definitely was beyond me at that point. A film of 'The Naked Lunch' was just plain weird.

So the question is should I give my daughter (12) a copy of 'From Hell' by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. I remember watching the Softly Softly team of Barlow and Watts discuss the Ripper investigation. This was where I found out about Duke of Clarence theory. Typically, when she found out about Jack the Ripper, she googled it and found the background. (Too clever by half at times).

MM talked about his friend J G Ballard and his writing in suburbia of Shepperton of how he would take the children to school (after his wife had died) and go back with a glass and bottle of whisky. Then just write and how it would words, ideas would float out, some would be good and some probably bad. Iain Sinclair chipped in here, pointing out that Shepperton was were the Martian had crossed the River Thames in HG Wells' War of the Worlds.

It is intriguing that MM was born in 1939 and how his attitude shaped the decade of the 1960's. As my father was born in 1930 and his distaste for the 1960's. Both my dad and MM, I think had a great time during the war as John Boorman did in his film of the period. This was set in South London where MM was born and I remember watching it with my mum; who at first hated it, but then changed her mind and told my sisters to go and see it. Seeing the world through a child's eyes and how different the world can appear.

This suggests there was a change and my parent were on the wrong side of the tide. My father was very anti 1960s, yet there was only 9 years that separate him and Michael Moorcock. I wonder how close were there childhoods?

I am looking for to reading Alan Moore's book, Jerusalem about the relationship of Northampton and London. The psycho-geographic links between the two. Moore talked about King John (who might or not been a bad king), Richard the Third and Cromwell. All people who create strong opinions with readers and historians. This is a text novel, so will prove intriguing of how he works.

Michael talked about Notting Hill and how he used it as a back drop for the Jerry Cornelius stories. Where he met another local who told him that under the old convent was a portal to another parallel world. Something that he, MM, had believed he had written about in one of his books, maybe Cure for Cancer?

It was a great evening and I got my copies of Mother London and The Entropy Tango signed by MM. He was very graceful through out the whole evening and I was very happy to have met him.

Entangled and Trapped........

Some Bic Biro line drawing from my Silbury Hill surrounding bushes photos. In the past the last image would be converted into a perpex engraving.

First stage playing with the image.

Looking at the composition of the original photograph and trying to line up the layers.

The main drawing, which is not quite right, bottom left corner needs to given more depth. The back ground needs to be brought out, but the linear line make this difficult as I would want a hazy background. Probably a sandpapered surface to give it a different texture.

Title, I like the word Entangled as it gives a feeling of a complex mess and Trapped, am I repeating myself?

Painting the Strands

The BBC had a good, short TV series about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. This was a great show as it was concise and enjoyable showing how radical these painters were at the time and tackling issues e.g. the effects of industrialisation and social understanding that were not the standard art fare, which I remember as being held up as one of the main points of the French Impressions.

This stood out again, when I watched another programme about Edouard Manet. Another figure from my past as Manet along with another series of lectures about the development of Modern American Art were the first lectures of my Degree years. This was one of the first times, that I had people instructing about art face to face. As we usually had a TV programme to discuss rather than seeing some one stood up in front of us.

Manet too looked to the past and the art of Spain rather than the academic classicism of French painting. Yet, there has always been links to the previous artists, Turner's work is obliviously impressionistic, but he has been looked on as a separate part of art history and not some part of the chain.


This painting by Holman Hunt of the Lady of Shalott is in the Manchester Art Gallery. It is a fantastic picture, but is much smaller than than you would think. I remember my father reciting part of the poem to me before I ever saw this picture. I like the way the body is twisting and the hair swirling high into the air.




These painters have been a more prominent part of my artistic heritage that I seem to be aware. It was the article about Martin Scorsese restoration of the film of the Red Shoes in the paper on Saturday that again set my thoughts weaving the past together. One of the reasons is the main character of Moira Shearer with her red hair reminds me of the various red haired models in the PRB's paintings.

Powell & Pressburger who made the film is one of my favourite, even though I found ballet difficult to enjoy. This film is fantastic as it shows the extend that art can drive you and the choices you have to make at times. It is both ravishing in colour and a great story told with simplicity.

The title was used for a Kate Bush album, which links the story back to to the original Hans Christian Anderson's tale and the film. Kate Bush's work is unusual and looking back avant garde or what might be termed 'Art Rock', although, this is subject to debate. Musically, I have always like the idea of the concept album with a group of songs linking together to create a 'bigger' piece of work.

One of the lessons I learnt was how PRB and later 19 th Century painters placed symbols into the image and layered the meanings. As the North West has a lot of Art Galleries as the benefits of rich industrialists during the Victorian age donated a lot of art to these galleries and imbibe the mind with their genre. It is only later that I feel the links of the chains back into the past and how it has affect my own ideas and vision.

Tangled Heart

This is one of my Big Wood drawings, these are large pictures of paper 640 x 900mm. In the past these drawings would be then taken in to fine print either etching or perspex engraving.

Looking at the piece, the reproduction is poor as the image is blacker with more depth in the 'gaps' between the branches. The black on some of the black has been too deep and become lost. It required the use of an eraser to cut into the pencil marks.

The main focus is meant to be on a part of the bush, where there is a circular black object with the branches stream out to make a connection with other limbs. Everything else is fenced the object or heart of the image. This is how the image finds its title or sometimes it can happen in reverse, where I have a title and want to illustrate it. The words of 'tangled heart' evokes a certain struggle or sense of entrapment. Why should it be entangled? What is the situation? It provokes a 'train' of thought.

Fever - Out with Paints

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.