graphite & watercolour/20x30cm
Once again a sheet of A4 paper, purposely folded & creased into a grid format & lightly, randomly crumpled (the subsequent top left corner, indeed, being already so, upon finding-choosing the sheet), drawn from life, in as-habitual natural light conditions, on 1:1 scale, the 'allover' image thus coinciding with the limits of the flat picture plane, this time observed & processed in landscape format, as presented.
During a break in the proceedings of the course of the drawing, a trip to Liverpool to visit the John Moores Painting Prize 2010 exhibition also afforded the opportunity to have a welcome potter amongst some of the Walker Art Gallery's other rooms, of paintings, sculpture, furniture & other objets d'art, to indulge oneself in time travel back through the history of art, from the twentieth century to medieval times, a privilege indeed, not least when encountering, for example, in the Late Italian Renaissance room, a Titian such as this illustrated:
Titian 'Supper at Emmaus'
oil on wood panel, c.1531-33
Under the circumstances of the drawings being processed at present, & the particular subject-object matter of, my attention was not unsurprisingly captured by a certain feature of the painting - an unfolded, sharply-creased, 'grid-formatted' white cloth draped over the supper table at which the figures are present, projected to the front of the scene, into the spectator's imaginative space, towards, indeed, the flatness of the picture plane, where there its apparent tactility might engage in contradictory visual dialogue with...
One of the many compelling features of any number of the historical paintings on view is, of course, the attention lavished upon the convincingly 'realistic' depiction of drapery & cloths, the rendering in paint of the surface qualities & textures of various fabrics, as might be appreciated from this second illustrated example (occupying a corner across from a wall featuring, amongst others, an early Rembrandt self portrait), from the 17th century Dutch tradition (thus traversing also considerable geographical distance in one's amblings from room to room):
detail from 'Portrait of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia' Studio of Van Dyck
oil on canvas, c.1630-33
Obviously, it is the area of white cloth, & the subtle tonal variations upon the creases, crumples & undulations of, tucked-in at the throat & flowing down over the bosom of Isabella, 'The Governess of the Netherlands', which was & is my particular focus in the picture, but admire also the gold thread woven into & highlighting the sombre drapery to the left of the portrait.
Soundtrack:
K-Punk 'The Metaphysics of Crackle'
She & Him 'Volume Two'
Moon Wiring Club 'Shoes Off and Chairs Away'
Mark Mulcahy 'Fathering'
Enjoyed the delights of the easy, Sixties-inflected, countrified pop charms of She & Him regularly & a great deal over the course of processing this particular drawing, such lovely songs well sung (by Zooey Deschanel, also their author, more familiar as an actress, not least as appearing in 'Weeds'), arranged & played, chanced-upon & loaned from the local public 'li-berry' (& how much quieter & civilized the environment there, properly in keeping with the finest traditions of such institutions, than prevails at the site of the day job, one might note...), having some time ago been informed of the album's existence via a suitably intriguing Guardian review of.
Also, & most appropriate to the approach of Hallowe'en, almost upon us, rumours emanate, like autumn mist, from Clinkskell of the impending threat of more bumps-in-the-night issuing forth from the collective efforts of the various mysterious members of the Moon Wiring Club...the anticipation is tremendous - indeed, tremulous, & palpable.
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