Having realised that light and shadow could play such an important part in these drawings, I thought some more about ways of playing with shadows. The newspaper cut-outs cast their own shadows, whether delicate or energetic, and I wondered if I could use another material, this time translucent which would cast a shadow if marked. I decided on clear acetate, drawing the motif on with a marker which can mark plastics; then went further and got some red acetate which casts a red light.
It was a challenge to work out how to hold the acetate at the right angle from the wall to cast the desired light; in the end , twisting it gave the added bonus of an odd, upward, angelic small reflection.
The drawing at present looks like this. It harks back to its very solid sources such as the edge of the baroque memorial greatly elaborated, the arrows from the recycling symbol on the bins in the civic car park outside the church, the arrows indicating higher or lower temperatures on the church’s digital central heating system control panel – all translated into motifs which I wanted to be akin to music in which different sounds which seem to come from different times are lilting, humming, clicking, clashing, thudding, whispering, all together, but each in its different way.
These are large drawings, several feet across. One more effort, perhaps to get them beyond the wall and down on to the floor and up and out of the windows… if possible…
