Jazz Green : Artist Journal

Posts tagged ‘drawings’

on drawing some boundaries

November 25th, 2010

just a few sketches of some local field marks and boundaries, on a little walk down the lane…

these scans, or rather the actual drawings, are each about 5′ x 7″, in wax crayon and indian ink…

any excuse to make some marks on paper…

some printmaking, old and new

August 12th, 2010

a few weeks back i attended a one day lithography workshop at the curwen press with three other artists, valerie armstrong, jenny goater and lynn hutton, organised through the art group artworks. valerie has very kindly sent me a cd of the photographs that were taken of our day at the curwen studio. it was a day of leisurely learning and perhaps a little professional development…


some photographs of the day at curwen studio

the curwen press (now known as the curwen studio) was established in 1958 as a professional printmaking studio for artists and fine art publishers, originally set up in London but it relocated to more spacious premises at Chilford Hall in 1989. the curwen studio has worked with a number of national & international artists over the years including henry moore, eduardo paolozzi, howard hodgkin, paula rego, john piper and chris orr (who happened to be one of my tutors at the rca). the curwen studio has bequeathed a collection of its prints to the tate’s print archive and it has also established strong connections with the royal academy and its academicians. in 2008 the curwen studio celebrated its 50th anniversary with special display of original prints at tate britain.

for the curwen lithography day, i decided to take along some small, textured pebbles from my collection so that i could explore drawing & mark-making from real objects, on a small scale – the six drawings are about A4…


crayon & tusche drawings on drafting film and the final lithograph print

here’s a close up (about life size) of one of the litho drawings on drafting film, of a very pitted and nobbly stone found many years ago on a beach in south wales, drawn in tusche ink wash, graphite and lithographic crayon – they were created on drafting film as the drawings were going to be used as the photo positives to process onto one large photo litho plate…


lithographic drawing on drafting film

however, when my images were processed all the delicate lines and textures of my drawing were pretty much lost – perhaps they needed a slower exposure, as it seemed even the tiniest trace of oily tusche on the film created a very dark, flat tone..


lithographic print on somerset paper

so, my final lithograph prints were a slight disappointment but nevertheless i still enjoyed my printmaking day out…

special thanks go to jenny roland and michael the studio manager for making our day both rewarding and special -  a fabulous buffet lunch was also laid on for us which was much appreciated!

i did quite a bit of lithography as an art student, on zinc plate and stone, and if i had the opportunity to pursue it again i would like to do more stone lithography…

along with the final editon of lithographic prints, which i’ve decided i will develop further with some drypoint intaglio or collagraph embossing, i still have my original crayon & tusche drawings on the drafting film… the second set of tusche washes (used for the blue grey colour in the lithograph print) seemed worthy of closer inspection since the subtle textures changed according to the direction of the light, shown here actual size…


tusche backlit from light from a window


with white paper placed behind the drafting film


photographed in a raking light

there was such a tremendous amount of subtle detail that i zoomed in further – these are the same three images, cropped to show those subtle textures…


this crop is about the size of a large postage stamp…


they look like something viewed through a microscope… (i would love a microscope that links up to a camera)…


and here, once again shown in a soft, raking light….

these photographs are very inspiring, as i see so many connections to my other work, from the drawings of bark & lichens to the textured panel paintings… and how digital images derived or developed from one’s own artwork are a useful aid to the creative thinking process.

so, a little time was spent browsing my digital archives, some digital printmaking from a few years ago…


char, digital print, august 2002

these are from a series of experimental digital prints in 2002, created in a very low-tech way. i scanned an old photograph (one of a piece of charred wood, the other of some rocks) as tiff files. the programme i used was an early version of graphic converter – it was freeware at the time. i then proceeded to print the images numerous times on a single sheet of paper, each time rotating the image in the software and then feeding the sheet of paper through the printer again. here’s another example…


rock, digital print, august 2002

i printed them for my portfolio but i did not exhibit or frame them.

more cloud gazing this week, torrential rain all day tuesday (a typically british summer’s day) – this was the view from the window at about 6pm…


a room with a view

i hadn’t really noticed how prominent these power lines were before; my days must be slowly draining of any meaningful structure if i get distracted by this visual discordance with nature’s billowy curtain… today when i awoke, i did, for a brief moment wonder what day it was, whether it was indeed saturday already, and that a day of to-do-tasks might await me, tasks which fuel so little enthusiasm as to be remotely filed and archived for just such rainy days

i am now aspiring to be a full-time, working artist after receiving written confirmation of the non-continuation of the day job contract (a sad sign of the times) – perhaps it is for the best, every cloud has a silver lining, or is that silver-toned..? in the manner of the featureless, grey days i have been feeling somewhat melancholic and the vast canvas of the sky seemed to be a reflection of the reality of recent events…

i have an appointment next week to get some business advice and hopefully formulate a plan… thus, i have not been motivated to paint much, well perhaps for an hour or so, here and there, when the mood takes. it seems too self-indulgent to ‘just paint’ when real-life concerns pile up like the laundry, and then there has been the issue of the quality of daylight

here are a couple of close-up images of lichenscape II in progress, taken earlier today…


detail of the surface of painting, lichen on stone textures

i had a rash moment of destructive thinking when evaluating this canvas (perhaps inspired by these photographic reframings, seeing paintings within paintings), deciding that i might cut up the canvas into nine smaller ones – the lack of a decent-sized space to work in is almost unbearable at times…

i have found that in attending to these two large canvases (the lichenscapes) it has clouded my creative process – i realise that i am trying to condense into these two paintings a subjective concern which would be better pursued over eight or ten (or even more) works… myriad other thoughts (too nebulous to be proper working ideas) also run through my mind, and then i have to remind myself to just focus


another detail of the textured surface of a painting

yesterday evening i attended the private view of the current exhibition rebirth. lorraine cooke, the curator, has done an amazing job in bringing this show together, i feel most privileged to have some of my work included in it. i realise that i am still reticent in ‘working‘ the private view scenario, as i slowly perused the exhibition – this is probably due to a) being very slight and thus am less ‘visible’ in a busy gallery crowd, and, b) a (now) love/hate relationship with the new dr marten boots; i walked to the gallery from the train station and worked up some fine blisters – such small injuries can really be the breaking of the spirit.

i also met and chatted with the artist veronica grassi – she has some quite beautiful textural, sculptural pieces in this exhibition. barbara leaney’s dogwood sculptures are also quite spectacular, as are the smaller, detailed works of the contemporary japanese artists included in the show. i urge anyone passing through the fine city of norwich to go and see the exhibition at art1821 – it is open until 8th september 2010 – you can also read more about the rebirth exhibition on art 1821’s website

to further the idleness of my daily observations, may i introduce my humble sketching kit (i always travel light, a habit instilled in me since inter-railing across europe)…


my winsor & newton sketchers’ box of watercolours


a tiny tiptree jam jar (for water)


an assortment of sketching pencils, mostly derwent & caran d’ache

and a composite image of the sketchbookiness of the last few days, 21-29 july, 2010…


skies and clouds sketches


monday, mid afternoon, looking east across fields towards marshes, high up in the sky, grey centre… in graphite, pencil and watercolour…


wednesday, early afternoon… looking east, cooler, bright, clouds moving fast… in graphite and pencil…


thursday, late afternoon, slim, dark clouds moving laterally, about 5pm…

it is becoming slightly obsessive; i have a mild desire to master the morphing art of the skies…

and i penned another haiku poem, or an ode to a cloud

a cloud
tarnished silver
darkened the weeping willows


i am thinking of joining the cloud appreciation society, whose pledge is to fight the banality of blue-sky thinking…

click here if you would like to see my cloud drawings animation from last year, the art of idleness

last chance to seetextures, traces & elements at beyond the image gallery – the exhibition closes at 4pm on sunday 1st august 2010.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

Marcel Proust

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The website of British Fine Artist Jazz Green MA RCA. Abstract landscape paintings, fine art photography. All images and text copyright the artist.