Lean Times

(Re)presenting the same pair of Chinese pears as featured in the previous watercolour drawing, this time arranged in such a manner as they actually make slight contact with each other.

graphite & watercolour/355 x 254cm

Soundtrack:

Japan ‘Tin Drum’

A real blast from the musical past, tracked down after being inspired to do so following a couple of the tracks from the album being featured on a recent ‘Gardeners’ World’ TV programme.

[untitled]

graphite & watercolour/355 x254mm

Another pair(ing) of the Chinese pears, one leaning slightly ‘this’ way, the other ‘that’, arranged according to that familiar attempt to create some form of ‘charge’ between the objects, as ascribed to a feature of a particular composition of Euan Uglow’s by Andrew Forge, although no drawn or painted marks link this pair in quite such a manner: on this occasion, as numerous before, just picking up Uglow's 'Complete Paintings' provided the necessary, irresistible inspiration to draw.
Again, the pale creamy-golden skins of the pears present the challenge of representing form via subtle variations of colour & tone.

Soundtrack:

Jesca Hoop ‘Hunting My Dress’
The Go-Betweens ‘The Friends of Rachel Worth’ & ‘Bright Yellow, Bright Orange’

Two-a-day

A remarkably productive day, especially in the context of the pace of work of this particular year, resulting in the processing of two finished watercolour drawings featuring pairs of the pale-skinned Chinese pears & attempting to capture & convey certain of the effects of light – direct & reflected - & shadow upon & around the space of the objects as observed over the course of time in the subtly changing light available within the conservatory/studio, in which looking-&-drawing is still proving a novel & learning experience…

graphite & watercolour/355 x 254mm

graphite & watercolour/355 x 254mm

[untitled]

graphite & watercolour/355 x 254mm

It’s long been the intention, whenever next possible, to attempt to draw/paint a pear (or two) as cocooned in those protective mesh jackets that authentic (imported) Chinese pears sport as sold in grocery shops over here, thus the recent purchase in central London’s Chinatown of such very objects provided the necessary grist to the mill.

The result of the looking-&-drawing process might convey something of the close observation required to communicate a sense of the tonal subtleties involved in realising a representation of something of the ‘thing-ness’ of the objects (& those within), but, alas it seems, little else – there’s no sense of the otherness that an encounter with the things themselves inspires, somehow.

(A) Gang of Four

And so to the active contemplation of the recently-acquired Chinese pears, the first fruits of which being this-here-photographic representation of a watercolour sketch of a gang of four of them, attempting to convey, as economically as possible, the colour & tonal nuances of their pale creamy-golden skins &, of course, the formal ‘thingness’ of the objects.

graphite & watercolour/355x254mm

OK, Ya...

A refreshing weekend trip to That There London in the company of A, taking in a jolly civilized day pottering about the National & Portrait Galleries (where we were most taken, on this particular occasion, by the quiet monumentality of William Logsdail's portrait sketch of JW Waterhouse), & also the Saturday spent dérive-ing through Soho & environs on the way, at leisure, from Covent Garden to Liberty, which afforded the opportunity to pop into a Chinese supermarket & encounter & subsequently invest in a tray of those insulated ‘Ya’ pears, the like of which featured in the early days of this blog & have remained in mind as approaching some form of aesthetic ideal, to be explored, since.
Here they are, as photographed soon after the return home, all eight & then a closer-up trio in their protective jackets, followed by a divested selection in their creamy-golden-skinned loveliness...