marly’s book and henry’s window

So that’s the initial work all done. Six to choose from, though probably only two real contenders. I’ve made small images of them here so that they can be viewed and compared more easily. Any of the images that Marly would like as page divisions will be made again using only black ink on paper, so that they will not require colour printing. I may play around when I start working in black and white, perhaps turn up a few extra foliate head images for her to select  from, and maybe a tailpiece or two and some vignettes. I’m like a terrier at a bone with this project, worrying away and unable to relinquish it!

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Quite soon I must move onto the commission that has come my way for the Henry Vaughan commemorative window, the full-scale pattern for which has arrived by post scrolled into a giant cardboard tube. Rod Bender is the presiding master on this project, and it is he who has produced the pattern and hereafter shall be interpreting and transforming my design into glass. The pattern is presently still scrolled on the kitchen table  waiting for me to quarry compositional solutions to its immensely long, though narrow proportions. I think that the foliate heads have been a good preparation for this work, as their pictorial simplicity and clarity of colour are germane to the consideration of imagery within the medium of stained-glass. Vaughan is one of the metaphysical poets… alongside Donne, Herbert and Marvell… and I came to love his poetry when I worked as a custodian at Tretower Court and Castle in the years between the theatre and painting. He’s lies in the graveyard of a country church a few miles from Tretower, and indeed his family once owned and resided at the Court, though the poet himself never lived there.

It seems that a circle is to close as I embark on the Henry Vaughan project. His poetry was a great comfort to me at a time in my life when I felt frozen and unable to move forward. Returning to him in preparation to designing his commemorative window is akin to visiting a well-loved friend to repay a long-outstanding debt of gratitude.

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I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great ring of pure and endless light.
All calm, as it was bright;
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,
Driv’n by the spheres
Like a vast shadow moved; in which the world
And all her train were hurled.

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From The World by Henry Vaughan (1622 -1695)

marly youmans and the foliate head: part 5

Here are the last images I have to offer in preparation for Marly’s book cover. In total there are now six coloured foliate heads, out of which of course only one can be selected. I find it impossible to effectively explore the full range of possibilities without making a whole body of work, though I’m sure the extra effort on this project will feed into others and so the time will have been well spent. Now Marly must make a choice of her favourite image, and Artlog visitors are welcome to have their say too.

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marly Youmans and the foliate head: part 4

Foliate Tattoo

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marly youmans and the foliate head: part 3

Another foliate head for Marly to choose from. Peter says he thinks I’m channelling the spirit of Ben Shahn with these, and I can see what he means!

marly youmans and the foliate head: part 2

Opinions and suggestions are flying in re my foliate head images for Marly’s book cover. No decisions have been reached as yet, but just to add to the debate, here are some more ideas ‘in progress’.

A fearsomely gaping maw with a pollarded tree issuing forth. I rather like this.

A lyrical, sideways-glancing green man with a flowing beard and leaves growing from  the corners of his lips.

Sketch for a tattooed foliate head. I think I’ll have to take this to the next stage before being sure whether or not the idea has legs.

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marly youmans and the foliate head

Foliate Head: acrylic paint and collage.

Marly’s forthcoming poetry book from PS Publishing, The Foliate Head, is the current project on my work desk. Three white on black foliate head drawings have already been selected from my archive as page decorations, but I’m producing a new image for the cover. Here are a selection of drawings made in the last couple of days as I work my way through the many ideas floating around my head. To fit in with other books in the PS poetry series my image will be contained within a panel on the cover, and so it has to pack enough visual punch to work at a smallish scale. I’ll be aiming for a graphic, slightly jazzy tone. While these early images are rendered in grisaille, colour will come later, and there may be elements of collage, which I think is a great technique for getting crisp outlines. But right now it’s all trial and error and the time to be playful. Marly persuaded Andrew Wakelin, who did such a wonderful job on my monograph last year, to be graphic designer on the project, so it’s in safe hands. Watch this space.

Foliate head: acrylic paint. Below: Conté sketch for the same,

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Foliate Head: Conté pencil and acrylic paint. Below: pencil sketch for the same.

The thumb-nail sketches below were preparatory to the image at the top of the page.

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I like the detail of the jaunty bird gazing at such a fearsome vegetation-spewing maw, though it didn’t make it into the collage version. I’ll probably make another one that includes the bird, just for comparison.

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Below: taking a more lyrical approach.

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As per usual, I won’t show the final work here until the book has been published.

christmas in france part 3: grand frais

I love the open air market at Bergerac where small producers lay out their offerings of vegetables, meats, artisan cheeses, breads and pastries and every variety of cep, mushroom and truffle. It’s always my first port-of-call when shopping for the table whenever we stay with Liz and Graham. However in the week leading up to Christmas Graham took us to see the new supermarket on the block, Grand Frais. Now the French really know how to stock a supermarket, though Grand Frais sets the bar even higher, filling its relatively small hall with island-displays artfully laden with fresh fruit and vegetables of impressive variety. (All the other produce is limited to shelves and cabinets running the lengths of the walls.) Graham explained that this is the supermarket of choice for the local Vietnamese community, and you can see why when you look at the fare on show. What’s more, while I’m a man who will always patronise the boulangerie above the supermarket, it has to be admitted that the fig bread warm from the bakery ovens at Grand Frais was incredibly good. So while my heart still belongs to the market traders and small shops of Bergerac, I’d always be up for a trip to this splendid place.

A wonderful counter of candied fruits. This is all a far cry from Morrisons in Aberystwyth!

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The dry-ice streaming onto the leaf-produce creates a rather magical atmosphere.

Not a scrap of vac-form or cling-film to be seen. Ooops, I’ve just spotted plastic packaging protecting the leaves to the left. Nevertheless, ten out of ten for being largely rid of the unnecessary packing that so blights our own supermarkets.

An infinity of olives.

Everything the chef could desire… not to mention the painter of still-life!

yesterday at ty isaf

… on a whim…

… in a room full of painted birds…

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… I painted a single…

fragile

nest!

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Trial runs on my work table.

on my work-table today

I’m preparing a design for the cover of Damian Walford Davies’ forthcoming book, Witch, due out with the publisher Seren later this year. Ultimately I’m going to produce the image as a lino-print, but for the present I’m working through my ideas in pencil drawings and ink layouts. I’ll post more details about the project at a later date. Today this is how the clutter of sketches lying on my work-table looks. The finished image must be kept under wraps until approved, though I’ll reveal that the design references seventeenth century bestiaries as that’s the period in which the book is set. I’m additionally going to hand-cut the lettering for the cover on a separate block. I enjoy a challenge!

graham rawle in oz

Graham Rawle is a writer and illustrator perhaps best known for his series Lost Consonants that ran in the Weekend Guardian for fifteen years. When I saw that he’d produced an edition of The Wizard of Oz I knew that I had to have it, and it hasn’t disappointed. While there are images from the book below, I urge you to seek out ‘The Making of Oz’ at Rawle’s website, where a promotional video can be found showing the meticulous craftsmanship that went into the realisation of the characters, costumes, props and settings for this marvellous evocation of L. Frank Baum’s masterpiece. (The video has been done in the style of a vintage film trailer, complete with ‘voiceover’  and music score. I felt a real pang of nostalgia when I first saw it.)

The double-page panoramas really hit the spot for me. Sublime! As a chid I loved illustrations that invited you to step into them and take a stroll.

The vignettes are many and delightful.

Rawle explains that the images are made from many elements layered as digital collages in Photoshop, a technique he clearly excels in.

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Over two hundred photographs of model buildings constructed by Rawle were layered into this ‘Metropolis’-like panorama of Emerald City, and is second version made after he became dissatisfied with his first attempt of a detailed model captured in a single photograph.

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There’s fun to be had working out the various elements that have gone into this futuristic architectural fantasy. I have a feeling that’s a lavatory freshener surmounting a building near the centre, and a latticework cat-mask has been added as bas-relief to a building on the right.

The colours are radiantly, gum-drop bright and the double-page spreads numerous. A book to keep to keep the reader page-turning!

The Wicked Witch as described by L. Frank Baum, with only one eye, though that as ‘powerful as a telescope’!

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I love the artist’s clever blend of the found and the constructed. It lends this Oz the imaginative qualities of a world conjured out of the broken and discarded. Here the familiar is weirdly re-imagined and junk is spray-painted into a gleaming, space-age Emerald City, complete with buildings made from bubble-bath bottles and a rubber washing-up glove. Tired old toys are recycled into the well-loved characters and the results feel more like something that children might find and then adapt for themselves from the contents of their toy boxes. Look closely and trees can be seen to be fashioned out of beads threaded on wire, and the inhabitants of the Dainty China Country might have been assembled from a bric-a-brac stall. Any child faced with this flight of inspiration might be moved to make a version of Oz out of whatever was to hand, and that would be a very good thing indeed. I’m all for improvisation!

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