Mapping on …

I have been away for most of the month, so no posts and not a lot of work.  The preliminary large-scale drawing on paper is more or less finished, but practically impossible to photograph in its’ entirety.  I’m thinking that the final piece is going to be even bigger, so have no idea how on earth I’m going to manage to photograph that.

The brand new roll of primed canvas arrived yesterday, thanks to Jackson’s and ParcelForce:

and I am relieved to say that I can lift it.
However, having clipped it up on the studio wall, I have been a bit over-enthusiastic and unrolled about 20cm. too much and the studio door doesn’t shut.  The oilbar+turpentine is very wet, so I can’t roll the canvas back up as per the usual method of working in my cramped studio.   Apart from that I’m doing well.

Coming back to a-n blogging after several years I notice a distinct difference in the general content, which I suppose must be due to the rise of other platforms.  The a-n page is much quieter than it once was and, although a few stalwarts remain, many threads seem short-lived or solely promotional.
I did wonder whether it was worth starting up again here.  However, I’m hoping that writing things down in one place will help me get my thoughts in order as well as providing a record of the project.  That is, as opposed to scattering comments throughout the sketchbook, where they are lost to view once I turn the page – or sticking them onto Instagram where the same thing happens.
I’m trying to reconcile my aversion to drawing straight lines with the need to be honest about the lines of electricity pylons at Bwlch y Ddeufaen.  They were controversial at the time they were erected, and they are visually intrusive in the extreme. You have to remind yourself that the provision of electricity was seen as essential, and be grateful that plans to drive the A55 dual carriageway through the Bwlch were abandoned in favour of its’ present coastal location.

Back to the problem of the straight line, and looking at it head on (and I should have used heavier, non-cockling paper).

Horizon lines: pencil, oil pastel, turpentine on gessoed paper.

Today’s  weather forecast was terrible: torrential rain and a yellow warning for thunderstorms, so I thought I would nip out in advance of the bad weather and have another look at the horizon around Bwlch y Ddeufaen. As it happens I need not have worried: I’m safely back home without more than a few drops of rain and a distant rumble of thunder. I’m watching the storms brew up on https://www.lightningmaps.org/# and feeling pretty smug.

Spring comes late at this elevation and the grass is still brown on the hillsides. The gorse is just greening up at the tips – lower down the valley it’s in flower in gorgeous gamboge yellow.  The new shoots of the bilberries are a lurid  lime green and the white seed heads of the cotton grass are everywhere. There is plenty of colour if you look for it.

So of course I made some large drawings in black and white, revisiting the idea of a 360degree view of the horizon.  I’m hoping that concentrating on the horizon for the time being will clear the way towards the larger pieces needed for the exhibition.

Drypoint etchings on re-purposed clear plastic (from the lid of a box of chocolates). They’re completely out of scale here as the “plates” are  only 10cm. long. Not really suitable for hanging from a high gantry in an arts centre, or at least, not on their own. I shudder to think how many I would need to make any kind of impact.

I’ve been making some preliminary studies derived from horizon lines.

The most obvious thing about Bwlch y Ddeufaen is its’ bleakness: peaty moorland, rocks, no trees to speak of. The next most obvious things are the electricity pylons. Two rows of massive, ungainly pylons.

It would be dishonest to ignore them, but it’s going to be difficult to resolve the tension between industrial straight lines and the more gestural marks derived from the horizon.  And, as it’s a map, it might need a grid of its own.  So: vertical horizons with and without pylons.