TIM BAKER

Back in the dark cold depths of January, I did a drawing I absolutely hated. Now it’s not unusual for me to do a drawing all excited and end up hating it or disappointed that it’s not how I wanted, or pieces where I was unsure/unhappy and got into the groove while doing it. This was the first time I started and ended a work just despising the whole process from start to finish.

As a result I lost a lot of confidence in my landscape work, and stopped drawing and painting for months, working mostly on the abstracts and then AI work, but even the abstracts fizzled out a few months ago. It was a kind of block, but more of an existential one – should I really be doing landscape work at all? What do I really want to do? Why am I doing this? And the dark and cold didn’t help, as did some health issues.

So I have been recently trying to get my confidence back and switch up my landscape work, as these crises are usually a sign of boredom or ennui around the subject, although on that day switching media didn’t help, my usual ‘go-to’ when something doesn’t work. And trying to go easy and not force myself into working certain ways or kicking myself if I don’t want to continue with something…like my river burn out I know that can backfire majorly.

So I headed down to Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare on one of the first trips out in mid April, as I knew that it was a reliable place, and I could head to Bushy Park if it went wrong, and indeed I headed there after these pieces. It was a beautiful day, although it did chuck it down for a little while later when I looked at the ‘delights’ of Hampton – does it really need FIVE hairdressing/nail places, it’s not exactly a big place, being basically a village enveloped by London? Makes Surbiton’s ten barbers and hairdressers seem minor.

First piece was the ink piece featured on this post, and it was made using some new Artway synthetic Quill Mop brushes I bought as a self-present for my birthday – they are great, and I’ve been using them fairly exclusively since then. Love the fact that like Chinese brushes you can get a point and also do a big wash with the same brush. Unusually I used a dip pen – something I only realised when looking back on the piece and thought that the strokes were a little too broad even for my vintage fountain pens.

Then a Jackson’s ink wash – the concept was as well as have fun but to also not get bogged down in the detail of the Temple – I’ve drawn it in detail several times before and didn’t want to do a architectural drawing or technical drawing, I wanted to really draw the trees (cypresses or poplars, I’m not sure which) and the building was secondary. I was working from the little raised area by the road looking down on the temple. I think this is the roof of a tunnel under the road into the Villa, so is usually locked.

Same with the second piece og Garrick’s Temple using watercolour and fountain pen which focuses on the larger trees to the right of the Temple. Much looser and was draw from the bench where I have worked before. Sgraffito, and even intentional splatters of paint.

After investigating Hampton and finding that there is no entry to Bushy there despite what Google suggests (I should know this, I have walked across the entry from Duke’s Head Passage Gate across the Brewhouse Fields before, it’s of-fence-ive, not a good walk) I then headed for the Hampton Gate and went to say hello to my favourite tree, the Hollow Tree.

I didn’t fancy sitting on the yellow ant hills (the residents were present and correct) so found a nearby bench and created an ink piece of the view. It’s called Begging Ravens because that’s what happened, a lone raven came up and started begging for food – a rare occurrence, ravens don’t usually do that. The same bird got put in twice because it posed, then squawked away then came back and posed again!

This wasn’t my only trip to Bushy Park, I went back a few days or week later and drew the water garden – they’d been closed the day before because of high winds, but thankfully they were open. A much better piece than last time (not sure I ever posted that one, was not happy with it).

I finished off with an A3 drawing/painting of a tree stump you might recognise – I’ve painted it once back in 2019 but from the other side, and from this side with a rather odd negative space work, which I remember throwing water over in a fury! This one I think worked better, although the vagaries of using very wet ink washes – yes with the Artway brushes again – means some of the detail was lost, hence the white Stabilo Woody pencil.