Rock Cemetery (Art & Photography)

During the virus lockdown in April I published my first art blog. I had plenty of spare time, stuck indoors, with no new photography. This led to a few ideas about how to keep the posts going including looking back at a Scotland trip in 2013 and sharing some of my artwork.

Whilst constructing a more recent blog I found the following Rock Cemetery write up in my draft folder. It contains a mixture of art and photography that wasn’t published as I pressed ahead with the Scotland photography from 2013. I also had a few reservations about posting art, as mentioned in the first art blog, and that was probably the real reason why the draft went unpublished. However, I am keen to move on with my art, going beyond copying other artists tutorials, and producing some of my own original work. Part of the process includes documenting my progress in this blog... so here goes!

Back in early March, prior to any lockdown, I was combining art with my photography. I was keen to develop a quick style of drawing and painting outdoors following the style of urban artists. Of course, that is easier said than done. Adjusting to drawing with ink pens, with no opportunity for correction, means freeing the mind and accepting the inevitable inaccuracies and failures.

The subject on this occasion was Rock Cemetery in Nottingham. I know this location from my photography and the grand Victorian gravestones, crosses and stone angels, all tightly packed in lines facing St Andrew’s church, provided an opportunity for both sketching and photography.

The artwork on the day was hampered by the cold and several rain showers condensing the drawing painting time to ten minutes or so. The aim in this time was sketching out a few ideas that I could use later at home and this is the finished work, roughly A5 size, completed in gouache*:

I limited the palette to ultra blue and burnt sienna mixed with white and black. Yellow was introduced for the greens and blue to correct the sky colour. The whole scene was under painted with blue acrylic, which streaked horribly when applied (see below). However, I did like the odd area where the under painting showed through In the final version:

This was the sketch on the day itself in ink and watercolour. Not a great outcome - the scaling is all wrong - but it set the scene for the gouache painting. Later at home I altered the composition using photos as a reference and then produced a test version on the iPad using Procreate:

The stone work around the cemetery was the main photographic subject, concentrating mainly on textures in a close format:

I wanted to represent some of the photography in my artwork and playing around with painting apps on the iPad I completed the following drawing/painting in Tayasui sketches - a mixture of the watercolour brush and the ink pen:

Overall, I like the idea of mixing the photography with various sketches and paintings on the theme of a location. I can see me doing more of this when lockdown finishes and I am currently working on my next project at the moment. I hope publishing some of my early artwork will inspire others to give art a go, remembering that the outcomes are less important than the enjoyment of the activity...which should be true for most endeavours, but is often lost in today’s results driven world!

*I didn't explain why I used gouache. Gouache is an opaque medium that can be used like watercolour. When mixed with white or black in a creamy consistency it is dense enough to cover over any underlying paint e.g. the underpainting of acrylic. However, unlike the acrylic, which is fixed when dry, gouache is reactivated by the introduction of new paint. This allows the tones to mix on the paper which was useful for the weathering effect on the gravestones and crosses. Gouache is also more forgiving than watercolour and I currently find it easier to produce an end result in this medium.

Robin Hood Hill (May 2020)

I have tried to take a measured approach to the post lockdown photography, selecting location to minimise contact with other people. Some of my usual walks, like the Southwell Trail, have been busier than normal as people start adjusting to the relaxation of the restrictions. Gradually, I guess, we will all get used to distancing and the risks of passing people outdoors will be better understood. Until then, I am happy to visit the quiet places like Robin Hood Hill, the wooded areas around us, and the lesser known footpaths.

The following selection of photographs features the scenes on the paths leading to Robin Hood Hill taken on several walks during May. On all occasions the weather was warm and sunny and it was a real pleasure to take in the spring conditions. I particularly enjoyed one hill that had been plough and raked for a spring crop leaving some appealing diagonal stripes on the landscape.

Luskentyre - Part 3 (2013)

This final selection from day one of the Isle of Harris includes close ups of the rocks and sand patterns at Luskentyre. If I remember correctly, we had decided to take a break from the landscape photography and took a wander along the shoreline in between the rain showers, taking only a compact camera.

In 2013, I didn’t prioritise this type of close up photography in the way I might today and would  seeing it as a secondary activity to the classic landscapes. Looking back now I can see how this balance was beginning to change, prompted in part by this visit to Scotland. I don’t think this was a conscious decision to change but I was influenced by the thoughts and actions of other photographers on the same trip, as will become evident in the forthcoming posts in this series.

When I returned from Scotland I processed only one or two images from this afternoon session so most of the following photographs were only looked at properly in the last month. Again, as I have stated a few times in this series, I was pleasantly surprised by the results. I particularly like the shapes and textures of the shoreline rocks, many dotted with lichen: