Looking at things a different way.

 

 Bored (for a while) with observational drawing, I decided on marker pens, imagination, cardboard sheets, and see what happens.

All artworks copyright ian gordon craig.

Pastels in the Park.

 

Weather was fine enough to visit Thoresby Park. I needed a bit of an art reset. So, oil pastels on large, cheep brown wrapping paper was the challenge of the day.

All artworks copyright ian gordon craig.

Pastels in Newstead.

I haven't wanted to get involved with any serious painting projects for quite a while now. But I do seem to be rather prolific when it comes to observational studies. This month's favoured medium was oil pastels, the location Newstead Abbey.

 

All text, pros, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Creative Collaboration.

 I’ve never either accepted commissions or chosen to do portraits of people I don’t know. For me, using a model is a process based on a level of collaboration rather than instruction. And the nice thing about collaborating with other creatives is it brings out different ideas, encouraging experimentation.

Above: “Under the Bridge” was both a joint venture and an experiment. Outsize masks were made in advance of taking photographs at Lady Bay Bridge, Nottingham, and also on a small pier beside Thoresby Lake. The painting is about how most of us can have two sides to our character.

Above: This large oil pastel drawing was originally intended as a study for a painting, but I thought I’d never capture again the spontaneity of the drawing. The collaboration involved a story-board  communication. I suggested poses via sketches, she provided images to work from. The result is one of my personal favourites.

  

 All text, pros, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Robin Hood’s Stride.

 

My ill-fated adventure to see the Nine Ladies stone circle, could have dissuaded me from venturing back to Derbyshire in search of Robin Hood’s Stride, another bronze age monument. Happily, it did not.

Much easier to locate than the Nine Ladies, though no less a test of one’s fitness, I reached the tip of Robin Hood’s Stride with no mishap, and set about gathering resources with sketchbook and camera. It’s only afterwards that one looks back at the video and thinks “What if I’d fallen? Who would have found me?”

Video: Robin Hood Stride.

I am pleased with the pastel sketches I made. Perhaps there’s a style / technique here I could return to?


 All text, pros, photos, & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Newstead Abbey, first attempt.

 Newstead Abbey, one of my first locations as a subject for painting after leaving full time employment. I am struggling with colour.

The oil pastel studies below (one showing the view from behind the waterfall), were more successful.

All text, pros, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Oak trees and late night thoughts.

 

Oak in a clearing.

Her life spans centuries. In death she provides sustenance and shelter for a myriad of creatures. Her timbers once put roofs over English halls, and the keels of galleons which carried both the literary delights of Shakespearean culture, and the terrible blood lust of Crusading soldiers, across the globe. All beauty is scarred.

Now she stands alone, isolated within a forest clearing created by a lifetime of casting shadows on those close by. We could learn from her example.


Late night thoughts.

 
Tick, tock.
It's worth being up late just to hear the ticking of the clock, unspoiled by the constant soundscape of urban life. It's the big white one through the square window above my head. My mother once said I would never be alone as long as I had the tick of a clock to listen to. I suspect that was a voice of experience. But my child's Timex wristwatch had a very short life span. Now, being alone is fine. Feeling alone would not be fine. Thankfully there have been very few times I've felt the latter.

Tick, tock.
Creativity is like a companion of sorts. It occupies your thoughts like a cerebral conversation, your mind exploring the possibilities each idea presents. And then at the end of it all there is this whole new creation, occupying a space where nothing previous existed. "A companion" is the closest I could ever get to a description of "doing art". It's like you were born with a double, but that double is only there, making you feel complete, when you’re creating something.

Tick, tock.
I bet the two old ladies in the white cottage opposite my childhood home, who had button boxes and tin tea caddies on the mantelpiece above their log fire, listened to the clock of an evening. Or maybe the radio? We only ever listened to the radio on a Sunday lunch time: "Round the Horn", consisting of double entendres I was far too young to understand, but which sounded hilarious just the same. Radio was mostly a holiday event for us. Me and big sister in caravan bunk beds, with Radio Luxembourg phasing in and out: "When the mist’s arising and the rain is falling, and the wind is blowing cold across the moor, Johnny Remember Me”.

Tick, tock.

All text, pros, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Colour!

 

 

All the paintings I exhibited during the 1980s / 90s were made using a very restricted palette: Alizarin Crimson, Yellow Ochre, French Ultramarine, and Titanium White. Perhaps now is a good time to start exploring Colour.

Below: It was so nice to sit out in my own garden, no work to go to, sketchbook and oil pastels in hand.

 All artwork and text copyright ian gordon craig.