As I am away at the moment I thought it might give me chance to get reacquainted with Brushes. At the moment there have been mixed results but I still have a few more days to Brush, pun intended, on my skills.
Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk
Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk
After a long but uneventful drive we got to see the sea at Newquay.
Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk
Oh the struggles I had to make this image – and I’m still not sure it is right. As any artist will know there reaches a point when you have say ‘…enough is enough..’ and I reached that point with this drawing.
A short while ago I mentioned I was thinking about a new project to do with the 1984 Miners strike – 30 Years Later. Today I’ve started to take the very first tentative steps along the path of making images for this project by visiting Bagworth – these are the first three images.
I thought the wind turbine protest was perhaps the most ironic as it was posted opposite the old pit yard at Bagworth – which is now a residential estate. 30 years ago the mine was dedicated to feeding the huge power stations along the Trent Valley with coal. As a result untold amounts of CO2 was passed into the atmosphere – now the villagers are protesting about a technology that will try in some small way to repair the damage done by all that coal. I thought there was a certain amount of symmetry encapsulated in this one notice.
The other two images record the passing of the railway, a constant companion of the mining industry from the 19th century onwards. The difference here is that both lines are some of the earliest steam locomotive lines in the world as they are part of the Swannington to Leicester railway line which opened in the early 1830’s with the aim of bring coal from Bagworth and other west Leicestershire coal mines to Leicester. They both went out of action a long time ago – replaced by more efficient ways to transport the coal and are now havens for wildlife.
Nature will Find a Way
I’ve been busy doing other things over the past few days and I’ve found it difficult to create something for this project. Still I knew these days would come so just got to continue the process and produce something.
Just felt like a bit of a sketch…
Don’t worry ’bout a thing
I had a strange juxta position yesterday of what art I love to make. In the evening a young friend of mine asked me about a portrait she was making – I immediately started to explain the faults I saw from a propositional prospective – especially the over large eyes. Most of the points were accepted but she was quite insistent about keeping the eyes the size they were. Each to there own but it did make me realise that the one things I love to capture in my drawing and painting is the human face.
Earlier that day I had the same realisation when I attended my life drawing class. For me life drawing classes are an ordeal that I must go through. This, of course, is obsurd as I don’t have to attend any of these classes at all but of late I have taken to doing my own thing. This is no criticism of the tutor but rather a realisation that I work at a particular pace and that I can only achieve so much in the allotted time. What this means is that whilst all my other attendees are creating paintings of the full figure I just concentrate on making a portrait. Since I have taken this step I suddenly feel a lot more fulfilled by the whole process.
Other things point in this direction. I cannot make landscape drawings or paintings and the reason for this is because I make landscape photographs. This is not as trite as it sounds because when I make a landscape photograph I use the very same skills I use to make digital paintings. So are my photographs paintings? This is a pointless debate as I no longer see any distinction between the two. On my LinkedIn page, I have no idea what LinkedIn is for but I have a presence there, people who know me have given me endorsements for Portraiture.
So I guess it is true – I love to make faces and the more I see faces the more I look and understand the infinate information they give out – which I guess is one of the defining features of being human.
Simon's Blog 