One of the supervisors is feeling that he hasn’t accomplished much in his trench, because it is not only complex but confusing. There is a balance to be achieved between working fast through the midden, to get to the structure of […]
Yesterday persistent rain and mud making an abstract painting on the floor of the supervisors’ hut. Today, bright sunlight creating sharp shadows and the ever present wind blowing clouds into many shapes.
Today I discovered micromorphology. Samples of soil on site are cut and put carefully into small tin boxes or, if larger, wrapped in clingfilm. These are then sent away to be suspended in resin, from which very fine slices are […]
The boulder has been taken out of the entrance to Structure 8, and they are removing stones and roof tiles that fell in – to get down to the main slab. Apparently, interesting things are found in doorways. It has […]
Yesterday, halfway through my painting, the sky on the horizon went black with rain and a small twister. It was too late to alter the sky, but I think it may show in the way the foreground picked up the […]
Yesterday, halfway through my painting, the sky on the horizon went black with rain and a small twister. It was too late to alter the sky, but I think it may show in the way the foreground picked up the […]
Changeable weather again – so what’s new? Chris, who makes carved stone balls using neolithic tools, has suggested composing a still life of them. Why does Chardin come to mind first, when I empathise with Cézanne’s approach. Chris agrees we […]
An amazingly still day – hardly any wind, which is so unusual. Voices carry across the trench. Huge cotton wool clouds moving very slowly. Some rain on the far horizon. The sky is so big. The trench is huge when […]
Trench tour for the many specialists working with the Ness of Brodgar makes me feel in awe of the complexity of the dig. Put in parallel with my project as Artist in Residence, it shows up the bewildering nature of […]
Hugo talked most interestingly about how Structure 14 may have been built – what was probably established first and how, bit by bit, the (non architect based) structure gradually appeared over time. Stones straight on to earth. (Our early C19 […]
Re excavation. Revisiting an eight year old trench. Yesterday they excavated the black plastic. Today brushing, weeding and gentle spade work, dragging off earth settled on top of previously exposed stone. Like working with a big trowel. Not on their […]
Something orange showing in the mud – a piece of oxidised pottery. Another piece slowly appears as the trowel gently scrapes away the earth crumb by crumb. Trying to draw the undulating stones like wafers, which I wrote about on […]
The Orkney Museum have given me a space, just off the Archeology display in Room 1, for an exhibition of work from my Artist’s Residency on the Ness of Brodgar in 2016. The show is now open and will continue until the end […]
A fine day on site at last, although the ever present wind makes the barrier tape rattle noisily on my sound recording. Quiet voices working on the final stages of Structure 14, where drawings are being made before stones are removed. […]
This year, I have begun writing as well as drawing, bearing witness to the activity on site. So from now on, alongside drawings and paintings, I will be posting written observations rather than journal entries. Wind and rain. Have to […]
It may have seemed a little quiet on this blog – but there is lots of post residency work in progress. The first 8 minutes of a film is available on Vimeo here. I’m trying to make it about the experience of […]
The lack of blog for the last few weeks has been due to intense activity preparing for the first exhibitions of the project at 44AD, Bath. For the month of November, I am featured artist with a display of pictures […]
It’s been over two years since I collaborated with archaeologist Keir Strickland to undertake a research trip to the abandoned island of Swona, in August 2014. Swona is just over a mile long and half a mile wide and lies in the […]
This week I have managed to make three and a half minutes of film. Some technical problems due to confusion over pixel aspect ratio have delayed further achievement – but things are moving along now. Here are a few stills from the work […]
Work continues slowly on preparing images and sound for a film about my Ness of Brodgar residency. I’m aiming to create a ‘painting’ rather than a documentary. Here is a compilation of drawings, to be used as a key image. Let’s hope […]
No visuals to show this week – but I have finally finished annotating all the sound files. From my daily Drawing Journal on Facebook: headphones and the ongoing mug of tea…
I have now begun to put the drawings and sounds together. It is slow work and will take all my time over the next few weeks. The first clip, available on Vimeo, is of archaeologists digging. If all goes well […]
The BBC Scotland website is featuring my residency, with images from my sketchbook journal!
Although I have now completed an online version of my Orkney journal, I am having difficulties in getting it to work online. Another update will follow as soon as the problem is resolved. In the meantime, here is a drawing […]
The first two days of this week were spent at the Drawing Research Network conference, ‘Tracing The Bridge’, where I hoped to learn about projects that are using drawing as a ‘bridge’ to other disciplines. Although I did not find any […]