Pool
The 'pool' is a puddle or a rock-pool. These collage drawings bring together rubbings from Scotland, collected from tarmac, rocks, pavements and the beach but also include some from London that I have taken with me. They are a response to my understanding of the landscape- they are enjoyable to make. I like trying to bring the different elements together into one composition. The white space is a deliberate device- I think it comes from making prints- where the white paper always plays a part.
Tide I
Drawn on the beach, a record of one tide coming in. Drawing on the wood, responding to it's surface- as a printmaker these things are super important. The gesso ground is deliberately applied randomly- the drawings respond to that, to the texture and pattern of the wood and to the sea. Drawn fast- there is an energy to the markmaking. It is difficult to draw the moving sea, but to try it, makes you cut out all the extras, to try to record what you are looking at and what it feels like to look at it. Importantly, how it 'feels' to draw.
Tide II
Drawn on the beach, a record of one tide coming in. The excitement of trying to record the impossible, the tension as your body, your arm tries to do it. It is necessary to be so absorbed that you stop thinking, and just draw, and working from the tide, like fast drawings in a life class, force you to be just the 'draw-er'.
Puddle Rock
When you look at things closely, when you look at them again and again- then you find similarities in different things. So the rockpools look like puddles and vice versa, when you look at the shapes, textures, formal qualities rather than what it is.
Studio Floor
As a printmaker I am always interested in the texture of surfaces, and often explore surfaces by making rubbings of the them. The rubbings are a type of drawing- it is not just an automatic action but you have to make decisions about markmaking, drawing tools, composition, in exactly the same way as you would when making another drawing. The rubbings, man-made or natural become confused, and have exploited this in my prints, so that you might not be able to tell which surface is which, and I put them in the 'wrong' place.
Tide Line Rock Line
Just playing really- trying to sum up a moment, a wave coming in. Drawing on whatever comes to hand. Drawing to the extremities of the boards- relating the markmaking to the edges. Containing and bursting out at the same time. The printmaker in me works to the edges of the plate.
