Throughout the week I've been continuing to make preparatory drawings for the Walking the Land summer school with Emily Ball Painting. I've really enjoyed exploring and experimenting with all of the suggested tasks and the range of approaches on offer. It's been really exciting and refreshing responding to the landscape in new and different ways.
Sound
This was quite a meditative process as I sat quietly in different areas of the pasture, closed my eyes and tuned in to the soundscape all around me. What was surprising was how such a seemingly quiet place was actually quite the opposite when sound became the full focus of my attention.
The challenge was of course to translate sounds into marks using a range of appropriate materials.
The first three drawings I made were by looking at the paper and the second three with my eyes closed "blind".
Time
I made a series of layered drawings over a seven day period with the first receiving seven layers of application and the seventh just one. For each drawing I returned to the same location every time.
Soaking a drawing in the stream and staining it with mud was a process I included which really brought fresh interest to the piece!
Movement
This approach considers how we move through the landscape experiencing it from a range of viewpoints not only as we travel but also when we stop to admire the view. We look up, we look down, in front, behind etc.
For the first set of drawings I was encouraged to do just that, by making a number of drawings on one sheet of paper, using a fresh tool and turning the paper each time. I really loved both the process and results, it is definitely an approach I will continue to work with in future.
The second exercise in response to movement were marks made as a result of the jolts and lurches of my physical body as I moved around the pastures. It's a very rough and hilly terrain which led to some really exaggerated marks!
My plan for next week is to combine some of these responses into larger A2 drawings (most of these are A3). I've already begun to experiment further in my sketchbook and am beginning to include sound in my drawings quite intuitively. It really is such a huge part of one's experience of being outside in the landscape yet not something I'd considered using in my work in the past.