Cutting it down to size…

Sometimes when I’m out drawing in the field as they put it, I end up taking on more than I bargained for. In this case it wasn’t a field - I was standing in a lay-by at Criccieth overlooking the castle. Turning my back on the castle I started to scribble the Black Rock behind me.

A storm was coming in off the sea, not yet fully there, the blue sky not quite chased away, but things beginning to whip up a little blowing my pad and making it flap in the wind.

When I draw I’m not really that interested in what I see. I’m more interested in what I see makes me think I see and then how that makes me feel. Oh, the semblance is there, but for me it’s more about what’s going on in the air, what isn’t quite visible but perfectly clear if you look at things in a certain way.

I look at things in a certain way.

All I was really interested in was the storm bouncing off the rock, unfortunately though I became entrapped by the landscape around it. All I really saw was the wind picking up at the darkness of the edge, but as always all the space around me drew me in and drowned me. All I felt was the change, the colour, and invisible movement in the air - so why the fields, the hedge, the stones?

Sometimes I take my drawings and cut them up, keep the pieces that I like and throw the rest away. Sometimes I’m left with a few postage stamp blurs of colour. Sometimes I cut and cut and cut until there’s nothing left at all.

Where are my scissors?