Light Drawing Directional Change

Some words, to my wonderfully critical critique group:

A lot has happened in the world since I last showed you all my work. I am now confined to the comfort of home and no longer privileged to the luxury of space. Consequently, the scale of work has been reduced significantly.

Just before I went into lockdown, I had been working on the three large charcoal panels below. Initially, I set out to do a large light drawing like the ones I showed in Berlin (view here). However, after visiting the South Coast after the fires over summer, I came back to the drawing, and something far more physical went into the drawing process. I think there was an element of anger and sadness. Also, the use of charcoal had taken on a different meaning and significance. I didn’t think about what I was doing or drawing anything in particular; I just went with it. I decided this was a background and something else needed to be drawn over the top; I just had no idea what.

A lot of my work is about landscapes, and the affect landscapes have on your senses. Walking softly amongst such horrific devastation will never leave me and was inevitably going to come into my work. The thing that had the most impact on me was the smell. It was a surreal mix of fire and rain. Visually, there was a backdrop of storm clouds and rain streaming down the black of burnt trees. The light was reflected in a way that the whole landscaped glistened and danced as I slowly walked. And it was silent.

After staring at the 3-panel charcoal drawing for what seemed like hours, I decided to see what graphite on the charcoal would look like. Without much thought I just started with a single line, running down the length of the page from top to bottom. I loved the light that the graphite captured. It is light that can only be seen from certain angles. When you look at the line from other angles you can’t see it at all. You have to move and walk to actually see the drawing. I decided to just keep repeating this line work. It wasn’t until days later that I realised I was drawing the rain on those trees, walking and movement also part of the drawing and then there is the light - once again I am drawing with light.

This drawing is now on hold until I return to the studio. Since being in lockdown, I decided to do a similar drawing but on a much smaller scale. My sister had sent me some flowers, and so I decided to draw one of them. This time I used Stuart Semple’s Black 3.0 as the background. Semple is a British artist who is currently in a very public fight with Anish Kapoor after he bought the licence to Vantablack and refuses to allow any other artist to use it. Semple has recreated an acrylic paint similar to Vantrablack and sells it on his website to absolutely anyone who wants it except for Anish Kapoor. The black acrylic paint that Semple created is the blackest black paint you can buy and absorbs 98% of light. Vantablack is technically blacker and absorbs 99% of light, but the difference is difficult for the human eye to distinguish. Either way, I just wanted to have a go of using it.

Once I painted the background, I was happy to see that the graphite was able to be drawn over the top in a very similar way to the charcoal. Initially, I thought I was drawing a flower, but somehow a landscape has appeared once again. The ploughed earth of Andalusia seems to be revealing itself more and more each day.

Below is a series of photos that shows what the drawing looks like from a different angle where the light isn’t reflected off the graphite.

The drawing isn’t finished yet as it is a very time-consuming process - luckily time is something we all have an abundance of at the moment. Well, actually we all still have the same 24hours just fewer obligations within that time.