Malta Sketchbook #1: Tigne Battery 14 Sept

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.

Museum Sketchbook # 9: Hanging Screens

Hancock: Hanging Screens 
(Charcoal, compressed charcoal and coloured Conte in A4 sketchbook)

The strange environment created by the designers within the old halls of the Hancock Museum, using sheets of MDF, extended to the ceiling. From there hung screens on which occasional videos were projected. They managed to create an otherworldly atmosphere, but failed to convey anything of the contents of the Museum.

Museum Sketchbook # 7: Hall of the Fossil Tree

Hancock: Hall of the Fossil Tree
(Charcoal, compressed charcoal and coloured Conte across two pages of A4 sketchbook)

Although it probably wasn't intentional, the design of the new curved display panels under the somewhat elderly museum lighting system gave a strange otherworldly aspect to the hall where the fossilised tree stood.

Museum Sketchbook # 5: Moa Legbone

Hancock: Moa Legbone 
(Compressed charcoal and coloured Conte in A4 sketchbook)

The moa were giant flightless birds in New Zealand and are generally believed to have died out due to over-hunting by Maoris. All that remain are bones like this which hint at what impressively massive birds they must have been.

I really liked the way the bones stood (literally!) in silhouette against the light from the cases in the background.

Museum Sketchbook #4: Main Hall and Gallery

Hancock Main Hall and Gallery (Mixed media)

Not exactly a sketch, but it is in the sketchbook. I started this with a monochrome photograph which I'd photocopied on the library copier. Then I worked over it with coloured Conte sticks and finally ran the result through the library colour Xerox machine, tweaking the effects.

A Week in Staithes

Staithes Roofs (0.8 fine line marker in 21 x 26 cm sketchbook)

As I do every year, I went off at the beginning of the month for a week's "painting" with some of my mates from the Art Club. I put that in inverted commas, because it's rare for me to get anywhere near some paint. Mostly, it's a couple of sketchbooks and some favourite pencils and pens and maybe a slosh of watercolour and a smudge of coloured Conte.

I honestly thought this year might be different.  For one, in Staithes  I'd be amongst buildings, which should mean I'd not be hunting for the odd twisted tree to provide some structure. Buildings, after all, are my thing. So it did seem as if I might at least get out the tubes of gouache I take along every year.

But I'd reckoned without the wonderful British weather. The north easterlies blew straight in off the North Sea and up the Staithes Beck valley. Although the torrential rain we'd been promised in the forecast didn't materialise, and the sun shone quite a bit, it was bitterly cold - one night saw temperatures drop to -6C!

But I set off with a good heart the day after we arrived, climbing up the side of the valley to look down on the town. From there I could see Westgate, the house we were staying in  That's it in the centre of the drawing, just across from the former chapel now housing the Captian Cook and Staithes Museum.

Surprisingly, the wind wasn't too bad at the top of the valley, so I was able to spend a couple of hours working on this drawing. I thought about adding colour, but I was coming to the view that I might do without colour or tone in the sketchbook on this trip, so I left it as it is.

Rookery Time - Sunday 8th May (pm)

Tree Round Rock (Brushpen, coloured Conte, sketchbook)

Rain had sent me back to the house after drawing the Tree with Green Head and it seemed set for the rest of the day, but when a break appeared that promised a reasonable time of clear sky, I set off for my newly discovered Rock & Tree.

I began with a futile attempt to work with my favourite Rotring Art Pen. The nib has dried up again. [Note to self: check your materials before going away again!] Back to the Brushpen again then and this time I began to find a new pleasure in its use. There's a nice fluidity about the way it handles and quite subtle changes in the line quality can be achieved.

I think I intended to give this drawing more colour, but the black clouds were moving my way so after quickly laying in two colours of Conte to push the subject forward, I ran for the house in the beginnings of a downpour.

Old Drawings #37

Ammonite Wall (Charcoal, coloured Conte, on A1 cartridge)

There are so many things needing my attention at the moment, that posting an Old Drawing seems the best way to keep blogging.

I found this wall in 1996 in Lyme Regis, a town famous for its fossils. I liked the vertical arrangement so much, I had to do a drawing.

Auchterarder: 5th Day

Craig Rossie Quarry (Coloured Conte, sketchbook)

Mainly a solitary day today, up in the quarry. Tony was discernible some way off, only by his silver-white hair showing above the heather as he sat and painted the view from the slopes of Craig Rossie.

I opted for these rocks at the mouth of the quarry. I was taken by the light glittering through the fresh leaves on the shrub growing out of the leaves, but I should have known that I'd not really be able to capture the effect with coloured Conte. Nevertheless, I'm not entirely displeased with it - there's a chunky feel to the rocks that appeals to me more than the shrub did. I should have replaced the shrub with one of the spindly trees that grew nearby.

You put your left leg in ...

Moa Legbone, Hancock Museum (charcoal, coloured Conte, A4 sketchbook)

At about this time every year, I begin to look forward to the end of festivities. After almost two weeks of rich food and drink, constant partying alternated with couch potatoing in front of the telly, I feel the need to get back to the routine of work in the studio and the occasional meal of beans on toast.

I miss making art. It starts to burn me up inside, but I did at least find the time over the holidays to scan in all my sketchbooks. I was pleasantly surprised to find that - scattered as they are throughout umpteen half-empty books - the images amount to much more than I'd thought. Don't worry, I'm not about to launch a new series of Old Sketches - the continuing Old Drawings series has a while to run yet. But my continuing interest in reviving the sketchbook habit has had something of a boost from this exercise.

Just after Xmas Day, Pat and I went on a fascinating walk through an old part of Newcastle which got me wishing I'd taken a sketchbook along, and I'm still thinking about the place over a week later. Maybe when the weather gets a bit more inspiring ...

On the Wansbeck

On the Wansbeck (Oil on board)

Later, at the Club, I finished this, which I'd resumed last week.

In 2002, I spent a day with some Art Club friends, drawing at a boat club on the River Wansbeck. There's a formal rowing club on the Wansbeck, but the area we were in was a run-down strip of foreshore, not far from the mouth of the river at Sandy Bay, with little tarred shacks and rotting hulls. Very picturesque. My painting, Wooden Sunset, was based on one of the upturned boats there.

Amongst other things, I drew this group of boats and a couple of the shacks, and when I got home I made a start on a painting based on the drawing. As is often the case, other priorities intervened and the picture got put to one side, only to be unearthed last week when I was looking for a small board to start another painting on. The muse took me, and the boats were up and running again (if that isn't a mixed metaphor).



Wansbeck Boats (Charcoal, colored Conte, sketchbook)

The Oak Citadel

Oak Citadel (Charcoal, charcoal and coloured Conte on A3 cartridge)

It's been my intention for some time to try to work on drawings outside which are bigger than sketchbook size. Oddly enough, although I've done it in the less agreeable surroundings of Newcastle, I've never really attempted it in the countryside.

This time I went prepared. I had with me a Mapac bag containing an A3 pad of Winsor & Newton Medium Surface cartridge paper and all manner of drawing stuff - charcoal, compressed charcoal, pencils, pastels and coloured Conte. And a new can of fixative. The fixative is really important to my working method. I spray as often as is necessary, rubbing down elements of the current drawing and spraying again, until there develops a crystalline tooth to the drawing.

Despite my preparedness, I still didn't achieve what I set out to do. Mainly because I hadn't prepared myself for something outside my control - the wind. The thing about little pieces of charcoal, Conte sticks and the packs they come in, is that they're very light. So a great deal of my time was taken up with rushing about retrieving materials and generally cursing the elements.

I know it's a poor workman who blames his tools, but I also found that my choice of medium surface cartridge was a mistake - I really don't like the rather mechanical tooth it's been prepared with. Maybe the other side would have been better for my purposes, but smooth would have been best of all.

Anyway, after a considerable time cursing and grunting, a black cloud came and threatened me and I was forced to give up. So the drawing as it stands lacks a certain definition in the trees. The trunks don't seem to have sufficient body and even the rocks are a little anaemic. I do like the way the shadows of the branches are cast over the rock face, however: something I would find difficult to invent because even standing in front of them, I couldn't figure out which branch was casting which shadow.

I may return to it in the studio when the time is right.