Giant charcoal drawings

I've finished the second of my 3 giant charcoal drawings and here's a couple of close-up photos to show texture detail. Can you guess what they are yet?

There's now less than 3 weeks before the work must be completed.  I have to take all the exhibition work to Cliffe Castle, Keighley on 12th September so they can have 2 weeks to organise the hanging for the preview which is taking place on Saturday 24th September.

It all feels too scarily close, so tomorrow I'm straight on to starting the third drawing. The giant sheet of paper is already fixed up and ready to go.

My space at Brooklyn Studios in Hebden Bridge is too small for doing these drawings so Trevor Smith the owner of Machpelah Mill has very kindly agreed to let me use the large basement room there.  The windows look out onto the canal and its very peaceful, which is just as well as I'm starting to feel the strain of my deadline...  

More photos from Leeming Valve Tower

Its all about sharp angles and circles in this series of photos documenting my tour of the valve tower at Leeming Reservoir near Oxenhope.

Water - it seems so simple when you drink a glass of it without even thinking about the complex systems we've devised to get it there, uncontaminated and clear.  The giant rivets on the outflow pipe are a reminder of the powerful forces of nature we seek to control.

Inside Leeming Valve Tower

At last, after years of curiosity, I finally get to see the view looking out from inside a reservoir tower. And what a surprise to discover that inside not only is there no giant plug on a chain, there's nothing much at all, except a large scary pipe under the grating that leads down to the water and ultimately underneath the reservoir to the outlet further down the valley.

I went to Leeming with Anna and Gavin from Pennine Prospects and we joined John the very pleasant and informative engineer for a mini tour of the doings.  I'll post more pictures soon but now need to concentrate on tomorrow's creative field trip to Widdop reservoir with the Titus Salt art students.

Puddles small and large

No Shortage of water on the moors now!  The steady rain has replenished every rock pool.

And all that water is channelling downhill.  This distant view of the Gorples reveals how the larger landscape is just the micro environment on a different scale.

I never noticed before how much higher Upper Gorple is.  When you walk along the dam on lower Gorple you don't really get a sense of all that contained water above.  The two dark pimples on the dams are of course the valve towers.

My Watershed Landscape

I never imagined I'd ever call myself a reservoir nerd, but yesterday found myself using exactly that term when discussing plans for this project.  For many years I've been walking in the South Pennines and have always been drawn to the reservoirs up on the moors.  There's something about these large bodies of water, they have a strange haunting quality connected with their isolation, and a magical way of intensifying light whether completely still and crystalline or dancing in the wind.

Blackstone Edge Reservoir

Feeding the reservoirs are a complicated system of drains and conduits - the catchwaters - constructed channels or mini canals that silently run for miles and miles around the tops, carrying the reflections of sky and clouds along with them, conducting light as well as water.  You can walk along them mesmerised and letting your thoughts slide away over their long mirrored surfaces.

Rishworth Drain

And adding intrigue to the mix are the odd little reservoir towers, all different but basically the same, so tempting me to try my own version of a Bernd and Hilla Becher photographic work.  The Bechers were German artists who systematically recorded industrial architecture such as blast furnaces, water towers and pit heads, presenting them in a grid structure in black and white that looks great.

Piethorne Valley

Leeshaw Reservoir

The official Watershed Landscape straddles the Yorkshire/Lancashire border stretching all the way from Marsden Moor in the south to Ilkley Moor in the north and takes in a whole swathe of reservoirs, some of which I'd never heard of. I hope to visit them all over the next few months and made a great start last weekend when I walked to Green Withens for the first time.

What I do

My specialist area is printmaking and I have worked in all the major processes - etching, screenprinting, lithography and relief printing.  For the past few years I've been concentrating on making woodcuts.
Alongside the printmaking, I find that drawing and photography are central to my practice. As you can imagine paper is a material I love using and I know quite a lot about it.

Increasingly I like to make Artist's Books where I design and create the book structure as well as the content. I particularly enjoy working with the concertina format because you can stretch it out and see all the pages at the same time or stand it up to make a sculptural object. A concertina book is great for telling the story of a journey, the sights, sounds and experiences along the way, so will be an ideal medium for  conveying my ideas about the Watershed landscape as I go on my long walks between the reservoirs.

At this early stage in the residency I'm not entirely sure what I will be producing for the exhibition at Cliffe Castle with writer Char in September, but I know that hand-made unique books will feature.  My main aim at the beginning is a blitz of experimention with materials, in my studio and more importantly, out in the landscape.

Here's a mini book I made a while ago called 'Tumbling'.  The artwork originated in a series of woodcut prints that have subsequently been layered digitally. The 'story' is simply the idea of being up on the moor on a late summer's afternoon and rolling down hill through the long blonde grass.

Inspired by Landscape - The Watershed Project

The official start of the Year 2 residency and highly appropriate that its April 1st since the trope of the Fool as an innocent vagabond associated with wilderness, new beginnings and the joy of discovery makes an interesting jumping off point for me and fits in with the approach I aim to take during the project.

I'm following on from Year 1 resident artist Sally Barker and author Char March will be taking on the role of resident writer from poet Andrew McMillan. Sculptor Sally has done some fantastic work with her photo montages so do take a look at her blog via the link on the right.

Inspired by Landscape is a 3 year project initiated by Pennine Prospects, a regeneration organisation, providing 3 artists and 2 writers with 40 day residencies to develop their own work and to encourage others to explore and enjoy the uplands of the South Pennines.