Drawing

We're off to Shropshire for a few days, heading home via Compton Verney, a place I have long wanted to visit. I'm taking my camera and my sketchbook. In some places I will automatically reach for the former but at Compton Verney I know that any recording I want to make will have to be in note or sketch form in the latter. I am perennially fascinated by when people sketch, why they do and how they do it. Last night I was reading the blog of Wendy Rhodes, an artist I met on a workshop a couple of years ago run by our mutual friend Sue Brown. I realised then that drawing was important to Wendy. It underpins how she works. Her latest post describes an exhibition she is part of this week with other artists committed to drawing. The piece Wendy is showing came from sketches made during a recent overseas holiday and I think it is stunning. All of the pieces on show made me think yet again about what drawing is for me.

I admire representational drawing and would love to master the delicacy of line and tone that can be achieved. Equally, there are days when I love to make huge expressive marks that don't represent anything other than my mood at the the time . To me, all forms of making a mark are valid. It reminded me of this video I saw recently. I am intrigued by the marks that are made by the random movements of the ball. Are the people moving it looking at the marks it is making or merely playing with it, blind to the beauty it is creating?

Summer nights

There is a lot of talk of 'autumn' but I am in denial! Whilst I accept there is a definite nip in the air some mornings we have had a week of wonderful sunshine here by the seaside and there are still plenty of people about enjoying their holidays. The Bank Holiday was great and we went for a long beach walk into Tenby on Friday night with the promise from my husband of a meal out afterwards. Well, my hero took me for fish and chips,eaten out of the paper and we ate it overlooking Manorbier beach, watching people surfing and swimming in the early evening light. I cannot ever leave Manorbier without a trip to the church but the light was fading fast by the time I took this photo.

On Bank Holiday Monday we went down to Angle Bay.When we first moved to Pembrokeshire we lived not too far from here and it is a lovely bay for a walk around but the tide was in on this night so I suggested we explore the churchyard instead before heading home. The church itself is about 14th century with 19th century additions. Growing around the porch was a beautiful passion flower and the trunk showed it must have been there many years. There is a local family synonomous with Angle and one of the family headstones was right outside the porch. I noticed that it was covered in lilies and passion flowers so supposed there must be a link there.

As light was fading fast I decided to come back during the day and drove down there yesterday on a beautiful, sunny day. The morning service had recently finished so I was lucky enough to meet and talk to the vicar and the church warden about the church. It has a fascinating history, not surprisingly, heavily connected to the sea and its location at the farthest tip of Wales. There are two graveyards, a later one being further up the village, even though the main churchyard appears to have plenty of space in it.

In truth, that is because many of the people buried there could not afford a headstone. As you walk around the different levels of the ground make it very clear what is underfoot. Those that are there however have some wonderful symbols carved into them, many obviously connected to the sea.

Behind the main church is a small seaman's chapel built in 1447. The crypt below was used as an initial resting place for the many bodies washed up in the bay after rough seas. The 19th century burial registers list many people who were found and buried with no name marker to identify them. Indeed, there is a large clear space in the churchyard which looks empty but there are many Japanese sailors buried there after a disaster in the bay during the First World War.

Just to one side of the chapel can be seen a small group of war grave headstones. These are a mixture of casualties from both World Wars, many of them Canadian. At least they have their names to mark their resting place but it made me think of families far away who have no idea of where their loved ones are buried. I found it all quite poignant.

I seem to have visited a few churches recently. I find them fascinating rather than morbid and I am particularly interested in the iconography of the headstones, as well as the typography used and the sentiments expressed. My wandering days are nearly over though as I'm about to start a full time art and design course at a local college. I have two weeks holiday ahead of me and then my time will fly by I think. We have still not decided where to go during our holiday or where to stay but if I do anything interesting I'll let you know. Have a great weekend!

Massimo Polello

One thing leads to another. I see a wonderful image on Fiona's latest blog post. It reminds me to look again at another blog I found recently. There I read in my pigeon French about calligraphic artist Massimo Polello. A search unearths a wonderful video. If you love making marks watch and enjoy.It makes me want to mix up my indigo grains into an ink and make delicious tracery with it. The pens, the brushes, the inks and the sketchbook all beckon. For no other reason other than the delight in the shapes we can make with the simplest materials.

Massimo Polello - Latest Works 2010 from Photophilla on Vimeo.

Taking Flight 12

I've spent some time in recent weeks decluttering and being ruthless with 'stuff' I have accumulated in my workshed. Amongst things to go were a pile of redundant prints - left over samples from classes and workshops that were not that good at all. As I was about to put them in the bin I thought perhaps I could chop them up into pieces and collage them to make cards. So, I did that. I made about 30 cards and came to a halt. By this time a few of my fellow Postman's Knock chums had already posted about making the final card in the series - their own take on their own theme. Well, I was going to pass but I had lots of prints that I did on a linocutting course that were bird related. I had copied the cover illustration of a book I had for practice but I cannot ever get a clean line with lino so as far as I am concerned they were useless. Well, I stuck them all together and folded the pages and made them into two small books. One is the right size for Postman's Knock so I made it into my 12th 'card'. I only used bits and pieces for collage that were within reach of my desk i.e other scraps just lying around and this is my offering for the final challenge. Nothing bears close scrutiny but it is a way of using up old things and it kick starts another idea that I've now started working on. I think I can finally put 'Taking Flight' to bed and I've had a clear up at the same time. Job done!

Talking to strangers

People often joke about the weather here in Pembrokeshire. Often it is best to ignore the forecast and just wait to see what the day will bring. Well yesterday started slow but then delivered glorious sunshine and some intense warmth. So, I decided to drive up to Nevern about 40 minutes away as there were some memorials in the church there that I wanted to search out. I've been a few times before but my interest had been piqued by a book I'd found about unusual memorial stones in Wales and I had to see for myself. The route I take goes over the Preseli hills and as I drove higher I left the sunshine behind. It got mistier and mistier until I was driving with full headlights in the middle of the day. Coming through the other side of the hills I decided to do a short detour to Pentre Ifan, set in the shade of the Carn Ingli ridge and, as you can see, Carn Ingli was shrouded in that mist I'd just driven through. Down the valley you could see the sun in Fishguard Bay but it was dull up there on the hillside.

Pentre Ifan is a wonderful Neolithic burial chamber. I never know the correct term for them. I call it a cromlech but it is also known as a dolmen or quoit I think. It dates from about 3500BC to 4000BC so it is a Bronze Age megalithic site. The Preselis are said to be the site of the bluestones for Stonehenge but how on earth they moved from here to Wiltshire is still a mystery.

The chamber has a huge capstone delicately poised on three uprights and, given that it weighs about 16 tons you have to wonder how it constructed and how it has survived the centuries.There were only a handful of visitors there but I got chatting to a couple on holiday from Denmark. They were remarking on our odd weather whilst sat on a stone, shivering and eating their lunch. They were touring the area looking for the unusual and I told them where I was heading, recommending it for a quick detour, because within a short drive is the church of St Brynach at Nevern.

I love these mounting blocks outside. I think there are only a couple of these left locally and they are a relic of a time when parishioners rode to church on horseback and needed to dismount! The entrance to the church is through an avenue of yews. If my memory serves there is a story about them being an avenue of weeping yews but it is obvious they are hundreds of years old. They have thick, sinewy trunks and branches and they cast a strange light over the path. The sunshine had disappeared and the air was absolutely still. There were quite a few visitors around in the graveyard although the church itself was empty when I went in. I was inside for about a quarter of an hour and no-one came in. It was quite wonderful.

Most people go inside St Brynach's to see the Maglocunus Stone which is set into one of the windows. It is a stone incised with Ogham Script made by strokes or notches across the edge of a stone. The date for this is about 5th century AD and is one of the earliest recorded languages. Outside is another stone called the Vitialanus Stone dating from the same period. I took a photograph but the incisions were very hard to see. A sign perhaps of all the centuries of Pembrokeshire weather.

People are also drawn to see the Great Cross. We are lucky to have two wonderful examples of Celtic crosses here. One is just down the road from the village we live in and the other is here. This is dated from the 10th or 11th century and each of the four sides has the compartments carved into it each of which contain a differently arranged ribbon, the endless interlacing symbol of eternity. It also contains inscriptions in another alphabet found in the earliest British writing so for anyone interested in language this is magic place to visit.

I particularly loved the coating on the top of the cross caused by years and years of the sap coming off the yew trees and then getting covered in lichen. All of the windowsills on the tree side of the church were all an amazing golden rusty colour. By now I had got chatting to an American couple and their son also over here touring the old sites. I remember the old adage of never talking to strangers but when someone catches your eye and you know they want to speak I always think it is rude to turn away. They were fascinated by the place and the age of most of the headstones so I told them what I had come to look for and they were as intrigued as I was.

Along the edge of the churchyard are a series of family vaults. Memorial tablets are set into the walls and small family headstones are set around each little plot. Some were delineated by little rusted metal posts, others by small stone walls and the one I was searching for had steps leading up to it. I had come to find the stone for the family of the Revd. Griffiths who was vicar here in the 18th century. He had married into the family of the local gentry, the Bowens. There were Bowen and Griffiths memorials all over the graveyard but the stone I wanted showed the sad deaths of Anna Letitia and George Griffiths, the infant children of Revd. Griffiths who died in 1794.

It was not that easy to read but it says:

'They tasted of life's bitter cup,

Refused to drink the potion up,

But turned their little heads aside,

Disgusted with the taste , and died'

I think that is absolutely wonderful and I took thin paper and a graphite stick with me to try and make a copy. My paper was too narrow but I managed to get it all rubbed down in smaller pieces. Now I just have to join it together somehow. It's going into my sketchbook and I hope to use it to inform some ideas I have brewing in my head. Sadly, Anna and George were not the only infants that died in the Reverend's family. Here's a rubbing of one of them. I was just so taken with the name. The afternoon served to remind me again - as if I need reminding - that the most interesting things are often on our doorstep. Talking to strangers visiting here from abroad also reminded me why I love living here. On the way out I noticed another grave that intrigued me but access was not great. I was wrestling with my pad of papers and my hands were black with graphite so I went off to the local loos and cleaned up and then forgot to go back into the churchyard to have a closer look. You know what that means.... another visit is already planned!

I'm a bit rusty.....

This weekend sees the final posting of cards for Postmans's Knock. When the 12 of us started in April I thought this date seemed a long way off but it has come round with amazing speed. My last card came from Jane, the recipient of my first effort all those months ago. She has introduced me to the poetry of George Herbert who straddled the period from the end of Elizabeth 1's reign through to his death under a Stuart king. She has chosen the words and format of 'Easter Wings' to respond to my theme of Taking Flight. Now I have a collection of 11 very different cards and that is what has been so intriguing about the whole project. Everyone has put such effort into the making of their cards. Speaking personally, I have enjoyed it all immensely. I really had fun trying to come up with something appropriate every time but I always knew the final card would be tough. Sue's 'rust' theme seemed to have people scratching their heads so I got a bit nervous about it even though she is a real chum and I know better than to worry what she will think of my stuff. After all, she has seen enough of it over the years!

I started by looking for a quote and thought I'd hit the big time when I found these words from the Bible - 'Lay not treasures up for yourself on earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt....' as Sue is an acknowledged lover of 'the dark side' of lepidoptera. They feature large in her own work so I started by rusting strips of paper using a card alphabet to create resists. I intended to make a small accordion book with the quote running through it but the resists fell all over the place so I abandoned the above piece and tried to think of something else.

Next, I rusted some slide mounts that I stapled together and I printed the quote onto acetate which I sandwiched in between. I cut the small moths from a sheet of copper shim and rusted them as best I could and put it all together. I was happy with it but I am my own worst critic and still did not feel as if my ideas had pulled together into something right for Sue so I thought again about the moths. As a frequent moth trapper I know my moths quite well so I started thinking about using one of them. - perhaps the Iron Prominent or the Rusty Wave? Nothing came together and then I had one of those lightbulb moments. What if I just make up a moth........

So, that's what I did, creating the Rusty Brown for Mrs Brown. I looked through the 'bible' I use to verify my traps and took the headings as a starting point. All the things above are just made up. They probably only mean something to Sue because I tried to make my offering very personal as she has been a great friend to me in recent years. I loved making it and it all came together in about an hour or so. Sometimes I need to remember that less is more and the simplest ideas are often the best ones!

With that, Postman's Knock is over. Please head over to the blog to see the final cards getting posted. I feel a bit like Steve Redgrave. Remember that quote about shooting him if he ever got into a boat again.... well, if anyone ever suggests a collaboration like this again...... hey, who am I kidding. I'll be the first to put my hand up!

Chinese magic

Watch in wonder when you realise that all of these amazing Chinese performers are deaf.