This year I have been getting into painting with gouache. I like the immediacy of it. A pencil or pen drawing can so quickly become so much more. It feels like a good medium for exploring themes I have been playing with for a long time. The way it flows on the page is so pleasing. I still love oil paints too. As ever, I want to paint bigger.
For the first time I took part in Inktober; the challenge to draw a picture a day, based on a list of suggested themes. It was harder than I expected to keep up the pace but I did enjoy it. It pushed me to try drawing new things. Eventually I got bored of black ink and moved on to colour pencil.
Below is a selection of the more successful drawings.
I like instruction manuals. There is something about their clean lines in sharp black and white that appeals to me. Instruction manuals have a rich history. One example is the Ripley Scroll. A wonderful and strange alchemical diagram from the 15th century.
I have been working on art with instruction manuals and diagrams as inspiration for years. It hasn’t really gone anywhere, but I continue.
I have spent a lot of time recently working on big pictures so I decided to do some little pieces for a change.
bird boxes that could brighten up Stokes Croft and the Bear Pit
I remember spotting the various bird boxes in the trees of Queens Square for the first time. They were a pleasant surprise. All shapes and sizes, they intruded in to the urban environment nicely.
I work in Stokes Croft and I feel that it could do with it’s own kind of bird boxes that match the atmosphere of the place. They could be made with scrap wood and then brightly coloured.
I have started work on a new large drawing. The drawing is made up of swirls, lines and a large black circle. I am interested in exploring how thousands of tiny individual elements combine to make something more than the sum of their parts. The circle is such a beautiful form and forms the centrepiece.