Activities
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Inspiring artist – Christo and Jeanne-Claude
I first discovered Christo and Jean-Claude’s work in an unusual and interesting book about relationships in 20thC art, architecture and science by O.B.Hardison ‘Disappearing Through the Skylight’ given to me by my friend Alan Wilson. It was written in the late eighties so although tech has moved on a fair bit it is still quite
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‘Suibokuga’ ink landscape joint pieces
These works are joint-pieces, landscape project wide scroll like artworks by students I have worked with. The first piece was made at my studio in winter and the second was made on the inspiring Abernethy annual art excursion (Hamilton College) to the Cairngorms area, where I am fortunate to enjoy making artwork and doing some
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Wandering along the edge of the North West
I’ve been out with my camera walking and looking at new sites not too far from Glasgow and trying to get some good atmospheric shots with my SLR. The phone camera shots here are a good memory trigger for later to get ideas going for sketchbook work and generally remembering the sights and sounds, the
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Hill-walking up through frozen moon snow, Ben Vrackie Scotland
moon snow guided by the rolling moon heated by the february sun Glinting and sunbeams – obscured horizons Above animal tracks, boot prints, Mountain hare prints in blue-white snow – Towards the half-moon rolling down Ben Vrackie’sWhite hill edge topped by south pointing iceSnow fingers from monstrous frozen rust structure,Rising from the summit’s ocean floor
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Fragmented scultpure and installation
Over the last few months I’ve been continuing to build up new ideas about 3D work in my practice, using various techniques, props, lighting and digital photography to explore presentation and atmosphere… It’s great fun building installations and working from these in sketchbooks, such as my dynamics studies, below left, (some tighter work and looser
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Sketchbook wordograph experiments
Here are some excerpts of word art drawings and notation, plus ink studies, reflections on last year’s trips to the Outer Hebrides… splintered half-covered green-grass wild-flowers sheep-shit tide-in tide-out rustless pink-steel-alloy sloping-hillside visitors at a distance cloudy morning passing boats skull shaped sculpture spacecraft zigzag trickle of fresh black water on grey brown
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Recent work and studies
Recent studies using mixed media on card, paper and sketchbooks have been leading to much more free and abstracted pieces that is the way I’m trying to push forward into more poetic, less pictorially restricted territory… ‘Flowing Through Space’ (top-left) was a bit of a breakthrough. Many of these pieces are moving fluidly through city
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A fresh perspective on the north room studio door
A very talented and enthusiastic student of mine blogged her visit to my studio with the photo and creative writing below, which I really like, and kindly allowed me to re-post here. It is great to be able to see the studio through fresh eyes… “Monday 23 January 2012: What’s through the door this week?
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Wandering the cityscape spaces
I always find interest in the variety of cityscape spaces, especially at twilight or night when it is easier not to discriminate between shapes. Atmosphere! Winter in Glasgow is not so bad after all. The moon shot I snapped reminds me of Dogen, who often used it as a metaphor for our experience and glimpses