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Observation drawing focusing on negative space 

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Observation drawing focusing on negative space 

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apon reading the brief and seeing the guided direction this project was being taken in [towards the thames] i quickly took a different turn and i wanted to focus on the river i know best - the river lea

there's 8 separate rivers in London with many of them now being under water and all of them including the canals are on the north side of the river where i grew up. crossing the river and being away from the water was a sort of rite of passage for me, the visual of looking out over the Thames in the moving van to come to uni is still strong in my brain but despite that i felt massively uninspired by the Thames as a location and what it represents for London. although the crossing of it is significant for me the actual river for me is uninteresting so i went back to the river i knew best when i was a child to 18.

this was a place where me and my friends would go for days by the river and parties, swim in it, cycle by it, it was just where we flocked to in a very human way. but as thats where i came of age in a way my memories of the places, looking back, now makes me feel uneasy. not only did bad things happen there but all of the people i associate with the place have all left London and its now too bitter feeling to go back, but the river keeps running.

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before going on the walk I prepared two a3 sheets of ink grounds where I soaked the paper in water then dropped ink from a height then blotted it with tissue over and over as the paper gradually dried.
I picked the best parts and made them fit into my sketchbook so I could make several spreads to draw on at different sections of the river

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each one is done at a different section of the river, I found myself stopping at familiar places rather then places that I thought looked the nicest
the four locations go as followed
- the secret spot you have to climb through a fence to get to that I would go with a friend to
- the location of my first date
- the fallen tree I would sit on with my friend
- where I went swimming with someone I no longer speak to

I do not think it's important to specify which is which I don't want people to look at it with bias, plus it might be interesting to see which people think is which

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these were also drawn in fading light as I started the walk right before the sun started going down, by the end of the walk it was dusk and raining which I think created an atmosphere that greatly affected the drawings

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the Thames walk , despite me being a Londoner and have been around the Thames my whole life, felt far less personal or interesting to me, the only parts I drew were very small pockets

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It did feel nice to see a Cormorant bird which I would often see on the river lea and saw 5 when I went on the river Lea walk, the most I'd ever seen in one spot which is really good as they are good luck talismans for men going to sea

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spent a work shop day collating some of the work and things I'd collected into a zine, this isn't what I want my work to look like but I wanted to see how things looked together and came together in one short book

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This book features plant prints from the plants I collected on my walk which I printed by hammering them between paper then running them through a printing press. I scanned them to preserve the image and flatten it to make it more appropriate for the zine

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This zine is not a massively successful as a story telling tool but was a good  exercise to do to start collector visual language and ideas

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I mixed photos, drawings and digital art which I printed and worked into more, starting to use the photos I took on my walk

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Paintings which started at sketches that I did on site them painted later from memory

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collaboration sara ortolani

-phd researcher and visual artists studying relations between people from an eco feminist view point
-ran informal educational workshops with the aim of bringing people together in the for front
-project aimed to investigate feminist historical and contemporary trajectories in education
-exploring womens potential in education dispute the distance of lock down
- Resina:: developing alternative and slow paced educated experiments and experiences supporting and connecting women in Italy and London through various media
-these women were rice farmers within the region of resina, and through groups initially formed for singing they formed bonds and collaboration eventually leading to a union forming achieving greater workers rights in the rice fields
-in the summer residency they explored the worki f womens relationship with eachpther and the land and how their farming impacts the land and greater biodiversity
:::: everything from culture to lands is connected and all rotate around the rice fields
-the practices explore the human experience around the land in non human centric practices
-the connection (dispute cultural and generational differences) was made by the research being done by women with the women in the rice field, they approached it with their own knowledge and respect for other women which allowed for an empathetic and natural project and work to be created
- respect is vital in collaboration
-the more different perspective in collaboration the more new combinations of ideas can be made
-Polyphony:::: where in music autonomous Melodie's intertwine so dissonant harmonies are created - you must appreciate the multiple temporal rhythms and trajectories of the assemblage
--- it is created entirely through collaboration with everyone adding the same thing into the group
-by contributing you great with collaboration with others
-'the older tree nurtured the young ones and provide them with food and water just as we do with our own children'

darryl Clifton

-jack sachs:: print and 3d rendered editorial illustrations
(Print is slay)
-logo sucks
-laura carlin slay ceramics
-nousvous

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--- I have the unique moment to make work within and for the context of uni, I am with a large majority of people dealing with that grief of moving away from home. Becoming a ghost in both environments of your family home and your new home you're trying to build and I can explore that topic within my specialism and peers
-this work can both be self soothing and comforting to others as it's a very isolating time dispite having the very unique time in our lives where we are around others who are going through the exact same thing

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with my work I can explore this with my personal context of the river with the crossing of the river being the flag stone for loosing that place at home and having to build that place on my own

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she is a mixed media artist inspired by beach combing, natural forms and discarded items, her work is made and inspired by places of comfort and safety for her, I also find. it interesting how she also feels intrigued by the way humans seek comfort by going to a body of water. I was initially drawn to her work because of the textures she creates in her work and her creative approach to book binding but after learning about her inspirations I understood why I feel like she feels like a good fit for this project.

when describing her process she is quoted as saying "manipulating material through building and breaking", exploring the "mediative practice of working with your hands" which is something I have been trying to directly impliment in my project, material first process can create very dynamic and practical outcomes.

the book work [pictured above] is most interesting to me, she layers and moods paper and acrylic and embeds objects and buildable fibres to create work that feels like its grown-- in a way it has as her process is very much working with the materials and layering them over some time. every page of her books is a sculpture in their own right and her process of working with feeling and comfort in mind and focusing mostly on materials is what gives her work such a naturalistic feel

-- my one criticism of her that i have struggled to not think about when looking at work is she talks a lot about being an environmentalist and making work from nature but she uses resin and acrylic in her work. these two substances are not only plastics but make toxic waste in the process of using them, her actual work seems very gentle but shes not as thoughtful in her actual process which is something i aim to not only do in this project but in all my work

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the river lea has very similar geology to the most of London with a clay bedrock and pockets of gravel and silt
- pictured above are illustrated petrography of different British geological forms found. it would be a good visual thing to implement into my work as a grounding factor- bring the river back to its stratographical routes

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I wanted to draw from other peoples experiences of grief with moving away - with mine being focused around seeking comfort at the river and my crossing of the river and if anyone has had similar experiences. I took only short statements or phrases or stories from people, like a field researcher, I wanted to open up further research from what people say

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https://archive.org/details/britishpetrograp00tealrich/page/576/mode/2up

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In the first drawing I isolated the trees from the drawing and the next focusing on translating it just to line
I used the same medium for this whole workshop to focus on contrast in technique not medium, I could very easily get a contrast in texture and line work if I used fine liner then acrylic but I don't think they would be cohesive despite working from the same primary research. I think using the same medium (gouache) means they share a visual language and you can put more focus on what I have chosen to draw

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Looking over the bank

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here I worked from a drawing I did on site (small drawing) and pushed it to more extreme perspective and position on the page -- I do think I could've pushed this further to have a more foreboding sense of space

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as my project is heading towards the direction of careful observation of how crossing the river has changed my perspective of it and myself I have found more concrete development of my project by working with a medium or through making. By doing this I am able to create a place for my work and thoughts to be presented. I was immediately drawn to book binding, the meticulous nature of it means you can create a really beautiful place for words and images to live as well as easily distorting the idea of what a book is supposed to look like to feel more personal. I can make a book to perfectly fit whatever work or research I want in it.
- for technical book binding I looked at the book cover to cover by ------
and followed a few examples

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A very simple book in hand made paper but with beads along the binding

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this one was made with the river walk in mind, one with pockets to store found things and space to write and draw specific findings when the other had space to format things differently, perhaps the first section to be just for drawing and the smaller blue book at the back for notes or vice Versa, the space in the middle can slot things in or even be a pop up book section

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inspired by Laura sotos texture work I began sculpting book covers from a very light weight foam clay, including objects found on the side of the Thames when mudlarking such as clay pipes and small shells
I also including small special rocks and crystals as well as just objects I have carried with me for some time

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these books are not the finished product as they need to be filled, as I use them (like any sketchbook or object) they will changed and molded to fit more specifically into the tasks they need to Complete
I also believe the book covers need another pass to add more texture. more over I, when making them, purposely left blank spaces for paintings, titles etc to fill when the book feels complete in its job of being a place to store recordings of the river

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Concertina book
- folded in a pamphlet style but each bend of the main strip of paper has a book hidden in it, it's able to be read in any order and each way up
-I want to use this one to focus on a sequential image work that wraps all the way around the book
- a story with no definite ending or beginning

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sequential images for the concertina book

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sequential images for the concertina book

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on site drawings using marker and acetone

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on site drawings using marker and acetone

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in both these thumbnail sketches the focus is trees and a sense of melting into the environment. its both violent and accepting

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painting of a scene and then abstraction of one thing in the scene

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here i followed the making brief in this workshop but still wanted to do my book binding here so i made a pop up book. im not massively happy with this outcome. i didn't have time to plan the images i was going to use in my pop up book so the actual work it portrays is not as solid as the rest of my work leading up to it and feels a little like a throw away piece. the actual mechanisms of the popup parts are also quiet shabby, i would like to do more refined popup 3d/2d pieces as pop up books were some of my favourite when i was younger. with my previous books i think they were successful because i made sure to thoughtful and take the time each one needed to be made. i know nothing of pop up books and how they're made so that may be a point of more research

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the second half of the day consisted of our work being projected over, i enjoyed the way my layered landscapes casted shadows on to itself, adding more layers and more hills in the landscape.

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this was the most traditional of my books with the simple binding and then a fabric bound cover, i made several of these that were then sold at a market- they all sold out so i think the time i spent to make them properly payed off in that regards as well as learning more skills that i can distort to continue making these books more exciting

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for my book i wanted the base the imagery around this poem by maggie nelson. her work has been very comforting for me and felt like it fit well into the story i am trying to tell. the entire book of poems is split into poems written by the canal and poems written about her friend in intensive car after she friend got in a near fatal car accident- paralysing her.
but the beginning of the book starts with this poem, and starts the themes of grief and following that loss and search for comfort through the imagery of water.

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the feeling of opening your eyes under water?

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the detail suggested to be my brain is actually a discolored picture of a melon, i ate a melon on the bank side which i had to rip open with my hands

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[left] study of a rock sample from river lea [right] cross section of a cows heart

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this book follows the words of Maggie nelson's poem and what it was like walking down the river lea again after months. there's a lot of very specific imagery in this book some which i want to explain and some i don't. there is details in this that i know people i spent time with on the river bank may notice and there may be other people who spent time by the river lea and had separate experiences and could read things completely different.

the use of cows is an important one that shouldn't be explained but they serve the role as a watcher, there were cows close to the river lea and have served as a distant watcher in my art for some time.

using the binding of the book was important to me, some of the pages extending further and flowing into each other i hope give a sense of walking along through the book as you read it. you can flick through it or stretch it out as you read.

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in terms of sequential artists i really like adrian koch, she works with moments, zooming in on details and seconds. it captures the feeling of a heavy moment so well, the little distractions you focus on to slightly escape when its happening become such strong images in memory which i think she captures really well

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the dream like quality from the layering of ink, pencil and paint with all medium blurring at their edges gives a sense of impermanence to the landscapes and people she draws. as if if you look away they might disappear, and they do sometimes with large panels turning into a unidentifiable mix of colour and mark making, and entire panels clearing away to just have words. i also like how personal her work is without giving a full explanation of who she illustrates or what is happening you just get a string sense of moment which is a very human thing. her work feels like a moment she chose to suspend in time on its own pedestal and though we as the viewer cannot fully understand we understand that it must be given a certain amount of care

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i followed Lara maiklems field guide for larking when i went mudlarking, her work was meticulous and careful and the book had sections for you to fill out yourself but once i was on the river Thames i stuck to collecting what interested me the most

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i used the pieces of pipe and shell and other found things with beads to make jewelry, the pipes worked easily as beads as they had a hole right through though others needed drilling

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1. portal drawings for river details i drew
2. pictures from my river walk
3. termite eaten tree from national geographic and a drawing inspired by that
4. study from river flora book
5. interesting way of storing found objects with book binding- artist unknown
6. art nuoveau designs by skisse from the 1900s
7. another interesting way of storing found objects in bookbinding - artist unknown
8. oyster shells by laura soto
9. sequential comic by mathieu larone

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Reference list

Anon, (n.d.). Aidan Koch. [online] Available at: https://www.du9.org/en/entretien/aidan-koch/ [Accessed 25 Jan. 2023].

Duvenage, P. (2022). The Ecstasy of Communication. Critical remarks on Jean Baudrillard. Communicare: Journal for Communication Studies in Africa, 25(2), pp.13–24. doi:10.36615/jcsa.v25i2.1739.

Maiklem, L. (2021). A field guide to larking. S.L.: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Nelson, M. (2018). Something Bright, Then Holes. Catapult.

Shereen Laplantz (2015). Cover to cover : creative techniques for making beautiful books, journals & albums. New York: Lark Books.

soto (n.d.). Drip, Drop, Laura Soto. [online] www.compulsivecontents.com. Available at: https://www.compulsivecontents.com/detail-event/drip-drop-laura-soto/ [Accessed 25 Jan. 2023].

Teall, H. (2015). British Petrography, with Special Reference to the Igneous Rocks. Arkose Press.