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The night the crocodile eat the moon
By: Deborah Ann Graham
I couldnt get the image of the crocodile eating the moon that night out of my mind. This is an exploration, I am trying to find as ever a way to respond.
Continuing to develop my work , take steps to come out from under my rock, connect with other artists and get my work seen.....in any bit of time I can snatch.
Deborah Ann Graham
I was educated in Carlisle where I attended the Cumbria Collage of Art and Design. From there I went to Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham to do a BA(Hons) degree in Fine Art graduating in 1987. After spending a year or so in studios I went looking for art related employment. Working first in the Animation Industry and then moving into Computer Games. Now although still working and having two small children I am determined to pursue and develop my painting once more.
# 3 [29 September 2009]
Landscape and myth, the story that tries to explain. This subject is board and something which I cannot separate out when trying to respond to an environment. The moon and the crocodile brought this home to me. It was there with us that night, new and in the moment, but the sight and feelings it evoked were ancient and forever and global.
I feel a thread pulling my past and present together. This echoes ideas I played with for my degree work and dissertation all those years ago.
I have just come back from Snowdonia where I spent the weekend on a yoga retreat. The surrounding landscape was quite stunning; again I found time to gather some sketches and photos. This time there was also plenty of time just to be in the landscape. I am worried to say I am going to do this or that, I am playing with the images but in truth I don’t know what I am going to do. I did have some ideas but I can’t seem to quite get hold of it. I think I just need to get messy and experiment.
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Comments on this post
Thanks for your comment Rob, I find that I have been trying to avoid saying I am going to paint landscape. I call it environment (that’s what we call it in the games world) or break it down into detail saying I am going to do rocks or sand or some such. I think I am scared to say it; years ago I painted traditional Lakeland landscapes to sell even using just my middle name to sign them, separating them off somehow from my “real work!”They sold well none of the other stuff did. Older and wiser now (ha!) I am looking to well I’ll see. Oh and I have put the Martin Simpson album on my Christmas list.
posted on 2009-10-16 by Deborah Ann Graham
Hi Deborah, You are not alone in wondering how to dipict the power of landscape. Some time ago I said to myself I wanted to be a landscape painter.....I have never achieved that and I still wonder if I ever will try to fulfil it. As you say if only I could get started. Everything falls so short of the memory of it. Interested to see how your photoshop skills relate to painting as thing progress.
posted on 2009-10-10 by Rob Turner
Deborah Ann, Thank you very much for your enthusiastic comment. I used to have a lecturer whose work had that effect on me and I wish I had told him.
posted on 2009-10-02 by David Minton
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Deborah Ann Graham, 'earthangle_prelim study (no final version yet)', scanned sketch,digital manipulation,photo of paint on canvas,digital manipulation, 2009.
# 2 [28 September 2009]
Sketches and photographs’, does the truth (not truth more what I want to say) lie between them or somewhere else completely.
Why am I looking at this again shouldn’t I have it worked out by now. I think in the past I would have taken a snap developed it and just used it as reference how it was. Now I take many snaps download them and bring them into Photoshop. There I can manipulate them, compose, blend, and draw into them. I can also scan in the sketches and do the same then bring the whole lot together and rework. I recently made a drawing based on a photo then overlaid it back onto the photo. My partner who is also a computer games artist, took a look and said oh that’s cool which filter is that...it was the me filter, the edges blur but it’s always the me filter. Is manipulating images in Photoshop very different from manipulating paint on canvas?
I sometimes wonder if the reference then becomes the work itself, or just remains a study for some final work.
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[enlarge]
Deborah Ann Graham, 'The night the crocodile eat the moon.', Altered Photo, 2009.
# 1 [23 September 2009]
We were walking along the costal path as the sun was setting behind us and the moon was already up in front of us reflecting on the shallow waters of the mud flats. Then a low cloud which the kids thought looked like a crocodile drifted over and swallowed it up. At such time the world around seems to bathe your soul in its beauty and wonder. So how do I respond to this in my art?
I feel like I am starting from the beginning again, exploring different ideas and media.
In this blog I want to look at various subjects such as:-
How to use my sketches and photographs, the mythic quality’s of landscape and how my environment work in computer games influences what I do in my painting.
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