What is it about drawing in a book?

so far as we can judge, pastel on 'opened book', 40 x 35 cm framed,

This drawing in the book English Wildlife (I found the book in Needham Market car boot sale), was one of a few images I made while thinking about the word 'Borders' with reference to The River Stour. The Colchester Art Society together with Ipswich Art Society is exhibiting at Firstsite, in Colchester.  Borders exhibition details

 

As I was drawing, I thought about a 'walk and draw' I took with Ruth Philo from Flatford, some years ago.  Ruth introduced me to Rebecca Solnit. Rebecca Solnit mentions the blue of distance and it was that ‘blue of distance' that Ruth saw in my drawing. I am interested in the place where the horizon extends. I wonder how far it goes, or I can see. For me that border is a border of suspended disbelief, of longing, of hope, of ambiguity.

 

When I get a book that I think might inspire me, I look at the words at the top and bottom of each page, hoping that something will give me a starting place. 'so far as we can judge' was perfect.

 

I worked from drawings, memories and fragments of photos to try to conjure the Stour, as that is one border which separates Essex and Suffolk and was the essence of the Firstsite collaboration. I was delighted to learn that the drawing sold last week. If you are interested in seeing more of my drawings on books you can find some on my website. More 'opened books'.

Firstsite exhibition 

day after day without, pastel on 1/2 an opened book,  

This has been a busy family week and because of the heat (and lack of rain), my garden has needed lots of TLC so less time in the studio than usual. But while I watered etc… I was thinking of new ways to make book pages and managed to do a few drawings. In this one, 'day after day without' I took a book apart and glued part of it down onto half of the cover. I want to have the option of making portrait drawings without having to make two related drawings.  I like having the cover as part of the piece. The image is my front garden and I was thinking about lockdown and how I have noticed so much more of what is nearby.  I am attuned to nature in a heightened way.  These are CHANGED TIMES and it is a little day after day without.

Flowers and Food, pastel on book pages. 

I have noticed how bleached everything has become because of the heat and drought. Even some of my bright flowers seem muted.  The potentilla was peach and is now almost white. Having said that, some flowers are eye-poppingly lurid.  I love magenta! This still life was a response to the bleaching of my world in the hot sun. It is also narrative, a response to the words on the page. 

 

And in other ways of playing with the media, the lavender at the bottom, which I hope reads as a book cover, is not really a book cover.  I made book cover facsimile with bookend paper and card. The drawing is not glued down yet.  The drawing was made on three book page-spreads glued together. These experiments will go somewhere, I hope.

A few new opened books

Villa Fiorita, pastel on book pages, 29 x 20cm

When I first started making opened books I remember someone saying that it would scare them to begin drawing on the prepared supports. they worried that if it were them they would 'ruin' the page.

Getting the page ready for my image does take time… First I have to find the book; then I need to find the pages that might speak to something I look at.  Next I have to prepare the books.  These days I like to take pages out of the books so I can have additional pages to work on, so I scan the pages as I go through the book, looking for words and ideas, cut pages out, and then glue them all together.  Once that's done, I press the opened book between books to flatten and dry, I use clear gesso on the top pages then mask and coat the pages with some pastel ground mixed with a colour. It's a couple of hours just to the point to beginning a drawing. 

Luckily a simple eraser removes my marks if I don't like what I do, so 'ruining' a page isn't a problem.

The Blue Hills, pastel on book pages, 30 x 21cm

One of my collectors wants a few more of these books so I am seeing what I can come up with. I have been going through my sketchbooks, trawling through my summer photos and looking at the prepared pages for inspiration.

Islanders Sea-breeze, pastel on book pages, 25 x 18 cm

Marginalia, exploration and the time all that takes

Opened Book:  My Little Bird Book, pastel on book pages, 30x19cm

 Yesterday I finished off the painting below.  It was a reaction to another painting which I began in the same spot; I added a few new things - I wanted to satisfy something that the other painting didn't have for me.  I was looking for some 'soul'. I wanted it to feel like paint. 

The drawing above is a reaction the painting below.  I set up a new still life but wanted to do something quick, spontaneous and experimental with it before I moved onto something more substantial.  It was afternoon and I knew the light wouldn't hold. I got out many books and looked for one that would be appropriate. I wanted a square format so I cut out a square piece of cardboard and put it over a few opened book pages looking for something that felt right. I prepared the book and gessoed the top pages then masked out an area with a pink/orange ground - a square in the middle. I drew and the result was a very chaotic image.  There were birds and owls on the side of each page and I selected a few words to show.  I used watercolour to create a frame around the pastel image. It didn't work.  I painted with black gouache over more of the words, some of the birds, right to the edge.  It didn't work. I extended the drawing . The end product makes me smile. The marginalia became some of the characters.  But, it was as much of a struggle as something 'more substantial'!

Oil on Canvas: Cherry Blossom Time, oil on canvas 30x30cm

This canvas is repainted over an old painting.  I began at night when the light was terrible.  I used the same paint that was already on my palette and returned to it over the course of four days.  I like it but if I go by what they say on instagram, it's not as popular as the previous one that is bright and fresh. 

Risk Taking and Quick Sketches

Some people freeze at a blank page.  That doesn't happen to me but I do work more intuitively and feel liberated to move things around, change colour and make compositions in a different way when I work (quickly) in a sketchbook.  At 58, even knowing that I sending a book somewhere to potentially have an audience doesn't make me too tight.  I look forward to the time each day when I will draw without intending to do anything beyond draw. Obviously I am scanning the drawings - there will be 32 in the end that I'll send in the sketchbook to the Sketchbok project https://www.sketchbookproject.com. I'm not sure if I will ever use the drawings I'm making for anything else but I believe that just recording all these arrangements is making it easier for me to use those intuitive muscles in the future!

A departure - drawing a clothed model

charcoal on paper 17 x 17cm

A few weeks ago a circular went around asking if anyone wanted to share the cost of a clothed model to draw, for portraiture. When I finished my Still Red Room pastel, I thought I might like to set up an interior in the studio and possibly hire a person to sit for me in it.  Then I went to Maine and now it's open studios so I haven't tackled a new big project yet. 

Today I went to this new group.  I was hoping that the model would be in a really inspiring setting, wearing wonderful clothes but she was in a portraiture setting. She has a compelling face and the light was beautiful.

I began with charcoal. I haven't drawn a model in this way in years and years. I thought I'd work tonally. It's a three hour drawing session andI was working on the top of my pastel 'table', a box easel with the easel part taken off so I couldn't work on anything big on that. I had brought a few sketchbooks appropriate for life drawing shorter poses. Never mind.

It turns out it doesn't matter how long the pose is.  I can begin again in a different way when I'm done.  The second drawing was on book pages.  Teven, the model,  liked that one and took a photo of it.  The final drawing was looser and I rearranged the room in my head and thought of Dorothy Eisner.

Pastel on book pages 13.5 x 20 cm

pastel on paper 16 x 16 cm

Re-using a monotype plate

Rapeseed, Oak and path  10 x 10cm, first version 1/1 monotype: Akua Intaglio

I think that working small can feel claustrophobic, sometimes.  It's tough not to get tight, to get enough distance and to have realistic expectations.  As a result there are instances when the print doesn't live up to my imagination…When that happens what I usually do is to begin again with the ghost still on the plate, trying to address the areas that don't work. The second print can be freeing.  By then I have worked out some problems and I have translated the landscape in some way and that leaves me space to experiment with colour and composition differently  I might work from my imagination in a way I wouldn't in the initial print. The second print usually takes less time. Occasionally I find that making the second print convinces me that the first print is OK.

Rapeseed, Oak and path  10 x 10cm, second version 1/1 monotype: Akua Intaglio

What's interesting when I show people two similar prints, one made directly after the first is that a 'favourite' isn't always universal. Deciding which is better can be difficult. Sometimes I even have to make a third print.  Sometimes I put the prints in the 'not fully realised box'.

Aldeburgh Beach  7.5 x 10cm, first version 1/1 monotype: Akua Intaglio

Aldeburgh Beach  7.5 x 10cm, second version 1/1 monotype: Akua Intaglio

And tonight we had a drink in the field.  I took my new altered sketchbook for UK landscapes. A Bold Venture.

Field with Lime Tree, pastel on book pages (altered sketchbook)

The land, the land!

Turqoise of Barn, pastel on book page

I'm recently back from Maine where I go annually to rake and dig and weed and haul garden debris with my brother, sister and mother. The weather was mostly fine this year.  We had the gamut: downpours, incessant rain, sun, whitecaps and overcast sky. One night Ben photographed an amazing sunset that I missed because I was glued to the news coverage. The temperature was really quite cold to unseasonably hot. I tend to draw early or just before I begin preparing dinner and I chase the light across the grass. 

Suffolk Pink and Rapeseed, Akua Intaglio on paper - monotype 10 x 7.5cm

Back in Suffolk, those intense fields of yellow rapeseed are now leggy and fading. There is a prevailing scent of brassicas and it's warmed up here, now.  But I remember the yelow! This is my first monotype in a while and it feels bolder and brighter than usual, less subtle, but maybe that's the rapeseed?

Kantha, Limes and Daffodils, pastel on book pages

 On the morning after we all arrived in Maine, before we had even reached Cranberry, we stopped at the Job Lot store (a family tradition). I found a haul of vintage kanthas and we bought a few.  The patterns and colours provided me with a backdrop for this visit.  There are plenty of objects to draw, but I was restricted by the flowers available.

Kantha and Rhododendron, pastel on book pages

Kantha and New Vase, pastel on book pages

View from the island, pastel on book pages