process

I’m back working with some serious intent after a dose of ill health – and focussed on completing three bodies of work.  The first of these is getting into the third and final part of the Landscape And Memory project, following on from the wood & water sections its onto rock.  And an opportunity to review the working process.  For the first part I pushed  collaged elements about with pva and acrylic paint across the whole selection of papers (some 21 in total) and then began working up each one, selecting text components as I went.  With the water work I’ve treated them piecemeal, with far fewer collaged elements, and it has been a far tougher ask.  So back to the first way of working in this section.

It has me thinking over how much process impacts on the making of non-figurative work, something that maybe has a more profound influence on how paintings work out than might be imagined.  How and why we choose elements, especially using collage, is fascinating to me. I try not to analyse it too much though in case I find myself shifting stuff around to ‘fit’ certain kinds of imagery….though hang on don’t these look mountainous!  Just as I’m re-reading material focussed on the peaks of ranges, in the west and the east…and good grief now Schama is talking dragons…obviously I need to exercise caution now…