A comment from Vivien at Painting, Prints & Stuff got me thinking today about Cornwall. I did a foundation course there and it was such an inspiring place to be. I've been digging out old sketchbooks and looking at an old painting.
The two on either side are of St. Michael's mount and were probably done about eight years ago. I distinctly remember being pestered by what felt like hundreds of sand flies whilst I attempted to sketch. (It's my dodgy photographic skills today though that have made the horizons so wonky.)
These are of Wheal Coates Mine, done two or three years later. You can see from the one on the left I was quite influenced by Michael Morgan at the time. Strange how even with the passage of time the colours I used were the same as the St. Michael's Mount sketch. The colours I used were much bolder and brighter back then and I also used a lot of texture pastes. I used to scan sketches and play with the colours in photoshop, reversing them and changing hues and saturations and then use that as a guide for my painting. That's something I haven't done for a long time but maybe I should as an experiment.....
In the painting Copper Gleam I've upped the contrast in the photo so that you can see the texture paste I used in the cliffs. The sky in the painting isn't quite as light as it appears here. This is one of about four paintings that I have left from my Cornish work, for me it's a keeper as it reminds me of good times. I've not been down to Cornwall the last couple of years but I really hope to next year.
Looking at these old sketchbooks has sparked so many ideas for new work and themes to perhaps revisit. At the moment I'm seeing lino prints in a lot of these sketches. I find it interesting to see as well just how much my work has changed but also how similar it is. So a big thank you to Vivien for the nudge.
Copper Gleam
12.5x17.5cm acrylic on board
:>)
ReplyDeletei too love playing with the images in Photoshop - whole new series of paintings can evolve
It will be interesting to see how you take these forward.
I like the second St Michaels Mount one
And aren't the mines fantastic to sketch?
Hi Vivien, I loved drawing the mines. On my foundation we were taken to a 'disused' mine to go into the environment and make work a-la-Andy-Goldwsorthy. We had security guards chasing us as it wasn't disused at all.... I did manage to make a 'drawing' of a mine shaft in graduations of different coloured rocks before we were firmly asked to leave.
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