Firstly as the brief break in the raining on Monday I shot outside as I was waiting for a parcel, and did a watercolour and pen image from the garden. The trees in my road have been severely pollarded, and it makes for a rather stark view. But with the bright blue behind the greeny-light brown of the Maple tree, it’s very iconic and abstract. I am obsessed with them atm.
I found a cache of old sketches (not of teenage parties cf. Pet Shop Boys) in an old A4 sketchbook. When I said I’d stopped drawing for several decades that was only strictly true of life drawing – I did have brief forays and then stopped again, annoyingly. Usually I’d buy a nice sketchbook, do a few sketches, then abandon it. This is one of those books (which I’m only now starting to add to – you’ll see those sketches shortly).
It’s a rare look at my older work (especially as my previous sketchbooks and artworks are in storage, I aim to get them out at some point and post some of the better ones). These are of the Peak District and one of Hampstead circa 2005, when we were visiting Sheffield I did a day trip out on the Pennine Railway. In fact I did a podcast when I was up there, we also visited the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and it probably was then we went to Rievaulx Abbey (I have pictures of that) so it was a very artistic visit!
It shows that my obsession with trees is not new, neither is landscape work, and my drawing and sketching style was pretty much the same back then…just I didn’t have the confidence to keep doing it, keep practising. And almost certainly would never show them to anyone, not sure I did even to close friends. I thought my work was shit, and was intensely guarded about it (in fact I didn’t show my sketches or drawings to anyone at life drawing for the first 5-6 weeks or more, I was embarrassed and very shy about my work, would usually hide it away immediately!).
Also back then I was very influenced by David Hockney’s landscapes, you can see that in the Tree and Boulders sketch…which I’m glad to say I’ve gotten over that in the intervening years! (I’m really not a fan of his recent work)
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