Campions. Oil on canvas 70×70 cm 2016 £1100

The beginnings of a new series of paintings, this post follows on from the Tregeseal stone circle drawings post from a few days ago. Three paintings  just finished yesterday and a few more drawings….. not sure about a titles yet…..probably like the others finished yesterday the title will be something along the lines of Field of Campions. Oil on canvas 70×70 cm £1100.

Field of Campions. Oil on canvas 70×70 cm £1100

They came about through frequent short cycle trips up to Tregeseal stone circle, and part of a new series of paintings that will eventually include several paintings about the stone circle above Tregeseal. As always during these cycle trips I carry my sketchbooks and camera to capture something of the experience. I do not copy from the images I take with my camera….I use it to document the activity and the images will often get stitched together and turned into a short film. and this will happen as the collection of images continues.

Wild Flowers and seeded grasses

Gathering all these strands together is a complicated process, always I hope that the process feeds through and can be at least hinted at in the final finished painting. Although it presents itself as one thing…..a final image it is much more and encompasses all the activities that occur during the process of creating am artwork. But not all of that process is obvious so for those interested in how these paintings come about I decided to keep a blog, although I tend to think of this more as a creative diary.

tangled Bracken

These three new paintings have been through the usual long process but gradually over the past couple of months as I began to think more and more about painting some of the standing stones and stone circles and cycling out to visit either Tregeseal or Boscarwen Un stone circle, these three paintings began to take on something of those experiences.

I am intending to do several paintings at Tregeseal stone circle that will reflect the different moods and weathers that come in throughout the year…… from fog and mist, rain and hail, storms and bright summer sky’s and with a bit of look snow…..

Campions in mist. Oil on canvas 70×70 cm 2016 £1100

Here are some drawings done at dawn or just after on my way cycling to Tregeseal stone circle. All my Sketchbooks, drawing materials and camera I carry in my pannier bags on my bike. The drawings are all done quickly as I try to capture something of the feel for the place, and in whatever the weather conditions happen to be.

Approaching hail

So some have approaching hail. It is quite fun sitting and waiting for the hail to travel across the moor.

I seldom use erasers….preferring to use my palm or fingers as I tend to use 9b pencils which are easy to manipulate, some eventually have collage and paint even soil or sand added to them. And if it rains well that just helps to move the medium around especially if I am using watercolour. Eventually some get framed, but I like my sketchbooks and tend to hold onto them…….

Tregeseal stone circle

They are like journals and references of varying technique and often suggest different approaches or directions. I will often work on them concurrently as I work on the large scale paintings that come from these drawings, so that they feed into each other. The process often almost completely re works the original sketch or drawing. But this I like and it reflects the changing nature of landscape.

Sunrise

So a drawing may start out as a calm spring morning only to have the weather change dramatically with showers even hail. It is challenging to capture this change…..but it seems to me that this is the point. Snapshorts of nature only real instants in time, I much prefer to capture something of the constant change in weather.

In recent years I have taken to making images of these drawings to save to my computer in order to work on them digitally creating far more abstract works which begin with drawing and become part drawing, part digital, part collage.

Mythological

These artworks are much smaller and go through repeated processes of drawing, digital manipulation, printing adding collage until they are finished…..

The last image for now was also done at Tregeseal stone circle……a dry stone wall with tangled bracken and a rainbow….

Rainbow

Over the next few months I will be working towards a series of paintings about some of the standing stones and stone circles near to where I live. This subject is problematic….but it is something I have returned to from time to time over the years. In fact the first painting I ever sold during my degree show at Wolverhampton Polytechnic was titled ‘Standing Stone and Sea. and came about from visits to Cornwall in 1984 but mainly from my student exchange to Limerick in Ireland in 1985 during which we stayed at Dun an Oir on the west coast of the Dingle peninsula.

So I will be posting a series of images drawings and hopefully a short film about making these paintings

Tregeseal Stone circle