Working Bigger with Beads

Bead Generation 37x45cm Pastel on Paper

In the run up to Suffolk Open Studios, I thought I would see what happens if I work directly  from life on a bigger format using my bead motif. I am working on Fabriano with a pastel ground tinted with acrylic. I chose a pale pink that you may be able to see in the right corner. I tried to chose objects (fabric) that would encourage me to use a variety of marks. The objects are just about life size. The patterns and colours are felt rather than rendered.  The orange shape is more beige in life but that killed things. While drawing, I listened to Shakespeare tributes on radio three, mostly classical music, but there were some sonnets too:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
   This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
   To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

And Lear:

	We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:
	When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
	And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,
	And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
	At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
	Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
	Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
	And take upon's the mystery of things,
	As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out,
	In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones,
	That ebb and flow by the moon. The necklaces were made by my mother, and they are emotional pieces in themsleves for me. Beautiful objects held in her hands and laboured over. Each object has a story and even when I am not thinking, just laying colours next to each other, I suspect I can't help but think on some level about these things as I draw.  Time contracts and I put the pieces together in what I hope is an honest way.