Grassington Festival 2012 Art Trail

By 10 am on Saturday morning I was at Leeds Art Gallery with a group of other artists. We had the delightful task of each choosing an artwork to take home!

I'm taking part in the Grassington Festival Art Trail, a collaborative project with Grassington Festival, Leeds Art Gallery and fifteen artists.

We will all be developing new artworks for a sculpture trail at Grassington Festival in June.
Using original artwork from the Leeds Art Gallery picture lending collection, each artist selects and takes home a piece of art and uses it as inspiration to create new work in response.

Members of the public can see the artists’ responses installed around the village during the Festival in June and they can also enjoy the original artworks inside local Grassington shops and businesses.

I swore I'd choose something small and easily transportable but was very taken with this lovely austere etching called Black Landscape by Printmaker Norman Ackroyd and had to have it.

The frame is about A1 size and heavy so thank goodness I didn't have to catch the train back to Hebden Bridge or my arms would be dislocated by now! The trudge up to a distant car park was bad enough but luckily I was fortified by numerous cups of tea and croissants provided by the charming facilitators Bryony Pritchard from Grassington Festival and Ted Wilkins from Leeds Art Gallery.

Grassington Festival is on from 15th - 30th June so I now have 6 weeks to make my response - the overall theme is Tracks and Trails which fits in well with recent ideas - looking forward to a new challenge and seeing what others get up to.  You can follow progress here as my work develops and also on the Facebook group set up for the project: http://www.facebook.com/groups/389873544386001/

I just want it to stop raining ...

Feeling really studio bound as I just can't face going out drawing when its so wet outside. Haven't heard a curlew in weeks now.

Curlew Nest Woodcut

Finally managed to complete the woodcut of a curlew Golden Plover nest on High Brown Knoll started earlier in the year and posted about as a demonstration of the woodcut process.  The printed image size is around 24 cm square.

This framed print is going to the Manor House Art Gallery and Museum in Ilkley as part of an exhibition titled 'Moor Views'.  The show is connected with the Watershed - Inspired By Landscape project I was resident artist for last year and includes work from the photography competition.  A little bird tells me that my friend Angelika Freydank is one of the prize winners - well done Angelika!  Opening times and details are included on the invite below:

Sadly, I don't think I'll be able to make the preview as I'm taking part in an activity at Leeds Art Gallery on that day, as part of a project with Grassington Arts Festival.

SPAM

I've had to remove this post as its innocent contents have resulted in vast amounts of pointless spam. I have no idea why.

Green Lizard at Widdop

I love Widdop Reservoir for its wild, bleak nature and like many places here in the South Pennines there's
a sense of austerity where wildlife sightings seem hard won in a sparse environment. So it was great to find this common lizard sunning itself in bilberry on the rocky outcrops above the reservoir last week.

During the same walk we saw a lovely male Ring Ouzel zipping along the shore, the first time I've ever seen one of these rare visitors - a mountain blackbird with a distinctive white crescent on its breast. No chance to photograph it unfortunately.

Curlews and Larks

I'm very happy to have seen my first Curlews and Larks of 2012 up on High Brown Knoll on Sunday.  Both species were being very active and vocal in the spring sunshine, no doubt pairing up and scouting for nesting sites.

The blue sky and sparkling light also highlighted a favourite aspect of the tops for me - the tiny pools that form amongst the rushes - so peaceful and remotely beautiful.

28 sculptural drawings

My complete collection of 28 Drawings Later, arranged on the plan chest in a somewhat random manner, showing the hastily built temporary white walls created as a kind of booth for taking photos of the artwork - all held together by bits of string, bulldog clips and insulation tape.

A book by Jane Hyslop

The Leeds book fair was up to the usual standard and I enjoyed a good wander round the tables stopping to chat to artists and handle books that took my fancy.  There's almost too much to look at so I always seem to do an initial trawl and then go back to about 8 tables for a thorough view.

I bought a small book by Scottish artist Jane Hyslop.  I've seen her work on-line at her website whilst idly Googling and liked what I saw so it was good to find something I could afford and take home with me.
This ones called Edinburgh a visual handbook - I love the colours, the drawing style and the way every things put together.

15th International Artists' Book Fair at Leeds

Tomorrow I'm off to see the Artists' Book Fair at Parkinson Court, University of Leeds.  Its on for 2 days and I prefer the Friday when its less hectic.  If you like Artists' Books then this is not to be missed as there's always loads of lovely, inspirational work to see and books to handle.

I've 'borrowed' this photo by Paul Laidler from the website of Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research UWE  http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/about.htm, its from the 2010 Fair where the exhibits extend beyond the circular reception desk and into the distance.  Admission is free by the way.

28 Drawings Later - The Fourth and Final Week

Here's the drawings for the final week of the challenge.   It was even harder than the third week, trying to do something different each day. My normal way of working is quite slow with a lot of thinking and playing around with an idea so it was exhausting keeping up the pace.

I decided to allow colour in, for a change and one day I also had to break my self set 3D rule as I could only manage a flat drawing.  The final drawing is a reiteration of the 26th with Photoshop additions, using masks and adjustment layers that take me a long time to do skilfully.  A sunset over water has to be one of the all time landscape art cliches, but you do see an awful lot of them round where I live and hopefully the diorama element gives it a different slant.

28 Drawings Later - The Third Week

I don't know if anyone else felt the same but I found the third week of this project to be challenging. Making a 3D drawn object each day became all consuming and I've been neglecting other things I ought to be doing... One thing thats become very apparent is the importance of well thought out lighting when taking the photographs of the drawings, and that in itself has also been time consuming.

Raptors

Today 3 buzzards were circling over Midgehole Road on the way to Hardcastle Crags, in a glorious ultramarine sky, making that unmistakeable slightly eery meeeew call they do.

I don't know why but I have hardly ever seen buzzards just around here in the past 24 years of looking. It has always seemed strange to me and I can only think it must be something to do with grouse rearing and gamekeepers, if you know what I mean.

Had the 'wrong' lens on my camera so could not get a close up.

28 Drawings Later - The Second Week

Here's the second week's set of drawings. I got quite excited by the crumpled/folded paper landscapes concept until I suddenly felt the need to look at bones again.

The bird skull is based on one I found in North Norfolk last year. I guessed it was a wader's and Googling confirmed it as originally belonging to an Bar Tailed Godwit. I did say my drawings had to be based around the South Pennine locale but it turns out that Bar Tailed Godwits are sometimes seen at Fly Flats Reservoir just over the hill so thats OK then.

Icy Heart

Heart shaped hole in the frozen canal

28 Drawings Later - The First Week

Help! this drawing project is taking over my life (but in a good way).  The 3D parameter I set myself means that I can't just knock off a quick drawing and scan it, so the project is taking up time and generating a certain amount of pressure. The benefit is I'm thinking a lot about the drawing process and what constitutes a drawing. Also of course, I'm making lots of work.  Here's the first week's results  with the most recent at the top:

Drawings for new woodcut

I've started work on the drawings for a new woodcut in the Enfolding Landscape series - part of a sheep's spine found up on the moor. Bones are fascinating and beautiful and strange.