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Tigne Battery - Clifftop
(Charcoal and compressed charcoal over two pages of A4 sketchbook)
OK, let's try to get this blog rolling again in its new home. Back to Malta, then, and my Malta Sketchbook from 1995. This is a view down onto a clifftop gun emplacement.
I'd be interested in hearing if you're still following this series of drawings. There are a few more in this sketchbook, and once I'm properly settled into this studio there should be new work to show you.
Tigne Battery - Roofscape
(Charcoal and compressed charcoal over two pages of A4 sketchbook)
A rather overcast day, but that lent a sombre aspect to this drawing of the concrete roofs of the Battery, looking out over the countryside.
I wonder if it brings to your mind, as it does to mine, the eerily vacant townscapes of de Chirico? Or is it a case of fixing on a landscape a predetermined aspect? There's no doubt that, even allowing for the reduced lighting, the drawing has become more about me than the place itself.
John Ruskin saw this practice of projecting our own moods onto trees, clouds or complete landscapes as misguided and branded it the pathetic fallacy. His view was very influential but failed to kill it off: witness the work of Nash, Sutherland, Piper and a whole host of other painters down to the present day.
Tigne Battery - Gun Emplacement
(2B mechanical pencil in A4 sketchbook)
Sometimes it's great to just sit and take the time to make a careful drawing of something. That's what I did with this page of the sketchbook, using only a 2B pencil to capture the tones of this concrete structure which used to house some of the defensive weaponry.
Tigne Battery - Gnomon
(Rotring Art Pens, black and sepia, over two pages of A4 sketchbook)
For some reason, I stopped dating the drawings in this sketchbook, so I'll have to give them titles. This one I've called "Gnomon" after the part of a sundial that casts the shadow.
You can see that this concrete building was badly damaged by the Luftwaffe during the War, leaving it shattered and pockmarked. I find this sort of ruin every bit as fascinating as some ancient archaeological site, like Stonehenge or Lanyon Quoit. It would be better if the graffiti, drinks cans and bottles, used condoms and syringes were cleared away, but hey, you can't have everything when it comes to urban archaeology.
Tigne Battery 15 September 1995
(Charcoal and compressed charcoal over two pages of A4 sketchbook)
I went back to the Battery the next day and with two kinds of charcoal, got this image down. I loved the grooves of the concrete walls and the way the arm of the metal hoist curved across the darkened entrance.
Tigne Battery 14 Sept 1995
(Charcoal, coloured Conte and 2B pencil, over two pages of A4 sketchbook)
A couple of days after arriving in Malta, I came across Tigne Battery. Barely discernible through graffiti (including a swastika), a commemorative stone read:
TIGNE BATTERY
RECONSTRUCTED 1937
Looking about, it was clear the Battery had been badly deconstructed after that, during the Seige of Malta in the Second World War, but to me it was immediately fascinating. Broken and stained concrete, rusting metal; what's not to like?
I hurried back to the hotel, collected my drawing bag and discarding the smaller sketchbook, got to work in an A4 sketchbook. This is the first drawing I did, showing the entrance to a gun emplacement, the gun having long been removed, of course. There's a long tradition of pictures looking through from one room to another and this a variant, I suppose. I like the feeling that something or someone may be waiting in that darkened interior.
View of Malta, 12 Sept 1995
(Pencil and watercolour over two pages of 6 x 8 in sketchbook)
OK, let's try to get this blog back on tracks.
I've only been to Malta once; I didn't much care for it. I know many people like the island and there are certainly quite a few artists who go there regularly to draw and paint, but though I've toyed with the possibility of returning, I've never been able to persuade myself that it would be worthwhile. Unless it were with the sole purpose of going back to Tigne Battery (more of which later).
If you're a Malta fan, let me put my case before you throw up your hands in horror. When I was considering a trip there, I asked a friend at work who had been there what he thought of it. His reply was succinct: "It's beige," he said. And so it proved to be. The island and all the buildings are made of limestone which, unlike the limestones of the Greek islands, is not white but, well, beige. I did this drawing of the capital Valletta, on the first day there and found the buildings just blended into one another such that I eventually gave up trying to sort it out. It's not a bad drawing (not very good either), but it didn't satisfy me at the time and still doesn't.
We were staying in Sliema on the northeast coast of the island and a bus took us to the hotel from the airport. On the way there, we fell into conversation with a couple who told us they had been holidaying on Malta for 25 years. They loved it. But it soon became clear they never went out during the day, not because they were vampires but because they were something much more exotic - sequence dancers.
It seems sequence dancing clubs are very big amongst a certain section of the British population and wherever British servicemen have been stationed, there you'll find a sequence dancing club. To cater for their passion, package holiday companies take them on holidays all over the Med - Cyprus, Gibraltar, Malta and the usual bits of Spain. It being too hot during the day to trip any light fantastic, They Only Come Out at Night.
So dancing in the dark is obviously one reason for Malta's attraction. The beer is pretty good, too, being British styled but lighter for the climate. However, when we were there the pubs and even the cafes stuck rigidly to an afternoon closing schedule which made life quite difficult. One day while sitting outside a pub finishing off a pint, they came and took away the umbrellas and left us in the fierce heat., yet there was still a good half hour of opening time to go. Sitting in a cafe we'd just got our sandwiches before 2 pm; five minutes later, other customers were turned away.
The buses were wonderful old machines, beautifully painted and decorated with rosaries and religious icons but all of them went into and out of the main bus station, which meant that if you wanted to go anywhere other than Valletta, you still had to go into Valletta bus station, change buses and out again. I understand there's been a shake-up of the transport now: the old buses have gone and Arriva has taken over. My experience of Arriva in this country doesn't make me any more cheerful to hear that.
Oh, let's finish on the food. I had the worst pizza of my whole life in a restaurant in Sliema. The wait for it was considerable and when it arrived there was a huge bubble in the pastry which had made the topping slide off to one side, leaving a dry lump of pastry bubble at the other side. I was so astonished and so very hungry that I didn't bother to complain.
So there you have it: not what I hoped for from a holiday. I was on the point of giving up on the idea of getting any drawing done when I discovered Tigne Battery. More next time.
Garden Gate (Oil on canvas, 16 x 16 in) Private Collection
2013 was not my favourite year by any stretch of the imagination. It began with a pre-existing eye condition getting out of control, went on to encompass two operations on my left eye and ended with a death in my partner's family.
So I'm not unhappy to bid farewell to the old year, even though it did have some saving graces: Pat, my partner bought a house much closer to my own and we're now able to spend more time together.
I've done no real painting since March. Partly because of the problems with my eyesight, but also due to a definite pause in the creative urge. I've written before about a feeling that I need a new direction to revitalise what I'm doing and I'm still in that uncertain state. But I always like the challenge of a New Year and intend to get some ideas sorted out this month so that I can start to move on.
Meanwhile, what can you expect from me here on Boogie Street, assuming that is that I'm still talking to at least my Regular Reader? A while ago I promised to resume posting from my collection of unfinished sketchbooks. The Malta Sketchbook is the one I think should come next, so watch out for drawings from that island.
Finally, there are exhibitions in the offing. Two are lined up with Figure 8 this year and I'm delighted to say that I'll be putting on a solo show for the first time in my home town of Gateshead in April/May. So there should be news of those as we get nearer.
Let me end by wishing you and those you love a Very Happy New Year indeed. We all deserve it, you know; let no one tell you otherwise.
Random Textures
(Random pieces of texture, copied in two colours)
The Museum Sketchbook has come to an end and I intend now to move on to another - the Malta Sketchbook. Before doing so, however, I have a sketchbook with only this solitary piece in it.
In 1994 the office introduced a Xerox machine that all the staff had access to, rather than sending work for out of office copying. As a result I went through a short period of experimentation with the Xerox process and this is the only remaining result. I copied various pieces of printed texture, together with a roll of tape, first on blue paper, then on yellow paper. This work is a collage of pieces of blue and yellow prints.
Tree Form, Devon, August 1996
(Rotring Art Pen and watercolour in A4 sketchbook)
One of my first drawings showing an interest in plant and tree forms, inspired by the work of Graham Sutherland, which continues to the present.
This is last drawing in Sketchbook No.2 and a big jump in time from the previous sketch - 1992 to 1996. I wonder if that means there's a gap to be filled by looking at other sketchbooks. As I've mentioned before, I began to buy sketchbooks faster than I could fill them and to use them for specific subjects.
Watch this space if you're interested. There'll be more to come. There's the Museum Sketchbook, the Saltwell Park Sketchbook, the Malta Sketchbook ......
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