Written Element for Assignment 5 Response to feedback.

EXPLORING THE CONNEXION BETWEEN MEMORY AND THE LANDSCAPE.

   I began this assignment looking over my coursework, trying to find what was most successful and what  I could improve on. I felt my drawings for Assignment 3 were some of my better pieces as well as ng some of the ones I enjoyed most. What seemed to stand out about the more successful drawings was a feeling of nostalgia. I also think I find this in the work of my favourite artists. I find a poignant beauty in all that is nostalgic and mysterious and the ability to capture atmosphere is something that I strive for in my work.

  Studying the work of Sigmar Polke I was very interested in the way he has drawn in ink over a red and blue ground. It seems to give a feeling of age, and this feeling of the lost past is what I am hoping to achieve.

                   
                                                              Sigmar Polke.

                                
                                                                              David Godbold.
               

I am drawn to these very beautiful and atmospheric pictures of trees 
by Michael Wann, they have an element of mystery and sadness to them.

                           
                                     
                                                                 Michael Wann.

This is not so much conveyed through the subject but through the execution. There are very dark areas which draw us in and make us use our imagination because things are not defined. We are given glimpses of detail only where the sunlight strikes through the trees.

 Juxtaposing areas that are highly detailed with areas that are less well defined or dark is very much how we experience our memories. Memory and nostalgia for the beauty of the past, seen through the landscape drawings I worked on in Assignment 3 are clearly to be my theme.

  I began sketching some old toy soldiers that I used to play with, experimenting with scale and colour, creating overlapping layers, thinking about childhood and its far-reaching influence.
              

                                 various pens and coloured pencils.

  About six years ago I moved back to the area where I was brought up as a small child. I am surrounded by my memories of that time which seem so intimately connected to the landscape. There still stands the tree I used to climb as a child.

watercolour and fountain pen

Fountain pen.

             
I have drawn it from two different angles. I wanted to lead the eye to the nice, comfortable place where I used to sit as a child and look out half-hidden on the world below. As adults we do not have the same opportunity to observe half-hidden and it is the sweetness of this memory and its unobtainable simplicity that I find attractive.

  I also drew two pictures of my present self just looking at the tree.

         

Marker pen and wash.

Watercolour and fountain pen.

       For me they have a slightly sad, nostalgic feeling for lost childhood, but I am not sure that these images could convey to others the feeling I am trying to put across. However, they helped to build up ideas and feelings in my head.

  At this point I went and sketched more local trees. I wanted to encapsulate my connexion with this landscape. My own roots being in this very soil. The age of the trees and their being silent witnesses to the lives of many generations. Wherever I go I feel very strongly the presence of my childhood-self. It struck me that the image of our old rocking horse could work well as a symbol of childhood rather than a drawing of myself as a child. The rocking horse is an old fashioned toy that has been in our family foe generations past, and stands not just for my childhood but more universally for childhood in general. I wanted to incorporate this symbolic image and tried out the idea of it being in the middle of some trees.

Sepia Pencil, fountain pen and wash.

                 

I like the image it feels abandoned ... in the woods of one's childhood perhaps? I think it might suggest the idea that one leaves childhood behind, but you carry it about with you always.

    My next problem was to try and tie all these elements together; my love for the beauty of the landscape, my feeling of being rooted in and tied to the landscape, and the way that it is inescapably impregnated with memories of my childhood, in such a way that I feel the presence of my childhood-self accompanying me as I move through the landscape.

 I was also thinking of a new way to place the drawing on the page and came up with the idea of using my own head as the boundary for the image.

Charcoal pencil.

                               

  I like the way that at first glance you see the landscape, and only with a closer look do you see the profile of my head. 

I tried overlaying the image of the rocking horse, as if it was more in the imagination than a physical object; but I felt it was unsuccessful, messy and confused.
  

  My next experiment was to try for the effect that Polke achieved in the piece above, with a wash of colour behind and the ink drawing over the top. *I also tried sepia ink to create a feeling of age. This drawing is inspired by the illustrator Anthony Maitland's use of ink and mark making. I ended up defining the edge of the drawing too much and making my profile too obvious.

Sepia ink with dip in pen and wash.

        

Illustration by Anthony Maitland.

Illustration by Anthony Maitland.

   For my final piece I started on a white support, sketching in the outline of the head in pencil. Then I began work on the drawing on the inside. I  flipped an earlier sketch the other way, wanting to lead the viewer's eye in a spiral,  from the roots up through the tree and onto the rocking-horse on so deeper into the picture. I worked hard on trying to get a definite foreground, most of my attention given to the tree roots, a middle-ground, with the horse and a faded background of trees. I struggled with getting enough tones, I think this is one of my weaknesses, though I think I eventually got some depth to the drawing. I went for pencil and black ink rather than sepia, because, although I like the look of the browny ink, the pencil has a lighter and softer touch. My mark-making although varied in shape and direction, I don't think it was enough in size, I feel the drawing would benefit from some larger more sweeping marks. Seeing that the drawing is in the shape of a head, it being smaller on the computer screen means that it is more obvious than when viewed in real life. I flicked the edges with a brush loaded with ink, and I like the effect, making me think of the swirling mists of time and mildewed ancient paper. I wish I had kept the drawing lighter and hadn't got so dark in places, as it is a very sharp contrast between the whiteness of the paper. The image is meant to convey the theme of nostalgia, or at least a part of it, for I would say it is a many faceted emotion. I was trying to create an image for a Proustian moment, "In Search of Lost Time".

                            

                       
                                                Pencil, charcoal pencil and dip in pen.

Close ups.