Continued working as shown here on the Dickens manuscript proof painting from the current Dickens display at the V&A national art library. All 3 manuscript paintings are now at a stage to being finished together and displayed.
04-15
Continued working on the photocopy manuscripts and the original manuscript.
Each page is stamped in a double oval ‘Forster Bequest’ at the V&A. The original vibrant red bindings were bound for/by his Geordie friend Forster, the manuscripts were rebound in 1965 but due to warping there has just been an improved rebinding, pale with brown leather corners.
Made a drawing of the left over 1965 blank manuscript & Started another Manuscript Proof painting from the current Dickens display at the V&A national art library.
The Current Dickens paintings of manuscripts are oil on small mdf panels, slightly curved at the edges (fig 1) and painted grey on the side as was the ‘Household Words’ (fig2)
I painted the first layers in acrylic drawing on detail then using a varnish to seal the pencil lines I painted in Oil. These early phases are shown here.
I am working on the original manuscript in the home studio, its portrait and very small but focuses the open binding lying open on a fabric bookrest in the V&A conservation department.
I am working on the photocopy manuscripts at my current studio in Bermondsey, which lie open stacked on each other and on foam on the desk of the national art library.
At New Year I visited the Museum of London: Dickens and London exhibition and the Dickens BBC programming, Dickens 2012 website have been helpful- as has having listened to a lot of his audiobooks whilst painting.
Having looked closely at the contents of the Dickens Museum I last painted some mottled magazine stacks in a cabinet behind class. In extension of this I have investigated the Forster bequest at the V&A, and begun a small series of work on the Dickens manuscripts: the original, the photocopied versions, and various conserved manuscripts.
This work is moving me toward the group show at the beginning of the residency which takes place in February, the same date as the Dickens bicentenary.
Ian Robinson
