drawn to nature

days when you find it hard to believe it will ever be summer again

2006-02-19T11:33:00.000-08:00

is it still february?,no wonder there are only 20 odd days in it.t s eliot was wrong when he said april is the cruellest month,feb is a wasteland.

wallpaper paste weather

2006-02-19T11:25:00.000-08:00

too miserable to draw outside ,curl up next to a warm fire,come on you summer!

pollard willow

2006-01-29T07:18:00.000-08:00

2006-01-23T15:35:00.002-08:00

i love ephemera,and i love messing about with collage and woodcuts,photoshop is a tool thatfor me requires strict control.the possibilities are so endless that you can easily lose the plot.you shouldn't really design straight on the computer without the ideas worked out before hand,but when you have nothing to lose but a bit of idle time it is better than nothing .and good fun.

2006-01-22T09:18:00.000-08:00

oul pastel sketch of an oak tree.drew back into it with pencils which mainly removes the pastel.this sketch looks much better as a scan than in the flesh,but there are some nice marks in there.dodgy background effects are bit of an afterthought and it was getting too cold and dark to do much more.

photoshop is fun

2006-01-17T13:04:00.000-08:00

spent the day scanning old work into photoshop and collaging it with other bits,great fun,an early proof (bit of) of a woodcut with some selected bits of ephemera imported in,looks like the stuff i spent days in the screenprint studio trying to do in the dark ages .

2006-01-16T16:19:00.000-08:00

church near allenheads -about 13 years ago
we did a course during our degree ,a week of drawing/spiritual/mystical "awakening"in northumberland.by the end we had lost a lot of the tightness and rustiness that a few years of graphic training had instilled.i love this drawing.it was really how it seems,very hot ,bright summer ,really wonky churchyard,the trees deep in shade and a bit blustery,oil pastel on black paper,lets you be loose and then work back in ,you can be fairly heavy handed without killing the life in the drawing.the course was aided by a part american indian guy who painted info boards for the nature reserves.after trying to get us to buy into his perspective he pretty much gave up at our cynical,student unimpressed selves.to be fair we weren't quite the townies he thought ,so we didn't go into raptures every time we saw a deer,which frustrated him.allenheads is a bizarre,beautiful place,some of the exercises we did,they make me chuckle -there are scenes in the blair witch project which are too true to me -seriously there is a house in the pine woods up there that we came across during a midnight torchless starlight navigation wood crossing-i am glad the film was yet to be made.us drawing in pitch black while tutor crawls about the woods whispering -i kid you not .i would like to go back sometime.the tutor died a while ago which is sad as he was a super fit fell running type and not that old.the place is a bit royston vasey meets deliverance.

blast from the past

2006-01-16T15:07:00.000-08:00

a blast from the past.probably the last image i made as i gradually gave up trying to be an illustrator ,there will be another blog so i can spew forth the piles of scribbles ,images, scans,collage,prints and everything in between.funny that g kind of forced me to go sketching again as a change from the doodling skulls,flames etc that i have always done.apologies for anyone who thought it was all nice nature pics,they will continue but i have a load of trash to sift through ,to see what it all means.

birch detail

2006-01-03T10:48:00.000-08:00

detail of the sketch below

chunky birch

2006-01-02T07:44:00.000-08:00

a really chunky silver birch tree in the woods at foxholes.nice to draw because of the colour bands and amount of detail on the bark.didnt quite get the way the trunk swelled out at you or the depth of the cracks but very happy with the sketch.a nice compromise between accurate detail without getting too fiddly and killing it.

easy photos

2005-12-11T07:38:00.000-08:00

point and click ,have a look then delete,digital photography is it too easy?great for messing around with when you should be drawing.easy to get nice photos ,easier than drawing,probably harder to get great photos.no wonder there are so many photoblogs.

bronze beech

2005-12-11T07:17:00.000-08:00

a truly beautiful day,clear sky with just a touch of haze,didn't inspire my drawing which is a bit rusty,but so nice to be outside in the daylight.this beautiful bronze beech caught my attention,just couldnt get the leaves to leap out.

walk photos

2005-11-20T10:23:00.000-08:00

autumn oak

2005-11-20T09:50:00.000-08:00

a beautiful day,crisp and clear,went for a walk and after taking a load of nice photos had a go at an old stag oak that is on its way out.got some of the bark and pendulous growth down well.quite pleased with how solid it looks.need to work out how to vary the weight and length of marks while still keeping the urgency and life.i'm drawing at a good tempo but need to be more concise and accurate.damaging finesse is the phrase that sums up what i think i mean even if it sounds pretentious .

birch fungus photo

2005-11-10T10:57:00.000-08:00

birch fungus

2005-11-10T10:20:00.000-08:00

at last a fair day and a bit of inspiration.a collection of bracket type fungus on a fallen birch tree .i have always had an affinity with birch,we had two when i was a child.my dad showed me their paper thin bark ideal as a tinder.i finished this sketch at home using photos taken on the digi camera .it felt a bit like cheating drawing from the computer screen but i was running out of light.didnt quite get the unreal rubberyness of the fungus but the birch bark is pleasing.another almost aborted drawing that i stuck at .so much colour /shade to contend with.must take another green pencil with me.left a white pencil behind ,have to look for it next time .its in bruern woods if anyone spots it!

stag oak detail

2005-10-30T09:23:00.000-08:00

stag oak

2005-10-30T08:57:00.000-08:00

a good struggle to get some of the volume and mass of a fine stag oak .after another tentative start i managed to get something of the foliage and brooding density at the centre of it.happy with some of the branch shapes .pleased that i kept at it after a lot of faffing around at the margins(while trying to work out what to do about all those leaves).i'm sure there are some" how to "books that give you a few tricks to do trees ,in fact the easiest way i think is to draw on black paper in pastel so all the inner shade and mass is done for you,but i'm after a challenge so i'll keep on til i get it. 5out of 10.

beech grove at stone mon

2005-10-25T09:43:00.000-07:00

decided to try and do some trees and got really baffled,ended up vaguely scrabbling around not knowing what i was trying to describe.a few little tricks made it passable but it didnt do justice to an amazing beech grove out near hailes abbey, at the spot cromwell watched the abbey burn.very windy and cold and i was glad to stop.ho hum.

parasol

2005-10-14T11:52:00.000-07:00

more parasol mushrooms.starting to get the hang of mark making again.not so tight .getting somewhere.

mushrooms

2005-10-14T11:42:00.000-07:00

a really enjoyable couple of hours in the woods,still too tight and vague but it was good to start remembering to ask myself ,is this line /mark describing form or line or colour or shade.funny how i dont remember ever doing that when i could draw years ago,it just becomes automatic.it was good to find my hands just doing some of it automatically towards the end, just making the right moves

First picture

2005-10-09T10:35:00.000-07:00

really hard work for a really ropey sketch,but it is great to have parts of the brain being forced into action.so i'm at the sub o level stage but by the end i was realising what i was doing wrong,just like riding a bike...!