Gardens Project 10:

One apple behind another, some distance apart

Large Garden Landscape (work in progress) mixed media drawing of the garden at Tickhill Road

“I saw a bird in the garden this morning, it wasn’t moving. When I went out to see if there was something wrong I saw that it was one apple behind another. Some distance apart. “

I’ve spent a good deal of time mistaking things for something else. In essence I made a career of it. I often see birds that aren’t birds, rabbits that are frozen into instants waiting to be caught by a passing glance. I once saw angels stirring their wings on the facade of the Sagrada Familia and shifted my feet to see them turn to plastic bags.

“This morning the silhouette of a deer in the distance resolved into a woman walking a small dog, and a large stone used to stop joyriders. Is it true that the closer you get to things the more difficult it is to name them?”

“Distances in the garden arranged like a victorian toy theatre, the flats guarding the succeeding views as you wind towards the fence. Out of the side of your eyes birds flit between branches punctuating your progress with commas.”

Small Garden Landscape – Version One small mixed media drawing of the garden at Tickhioll Road

“Reification or Gestalt Figure-Ground? Is the illusion created by the action of recognising an implied form or by the failure to distinguish a form from it’s surroundings?”

“This morning (another morning) a bird flitting through the trees next to me landed on a branch and became a curled dead leaf waiting to fall.”

“This morning (another morning) a pigeon turned into the leaves of a bramble by my feet.”

Small Garden Landscape – Version Two small mixed media drawing of the garden at Tickhioll Road

These notes were made over the last month as I try to articulate the things that are driving the Gardens Project. I’ll post a more in depth look at that that I’m working on at the moment.

As well as spending more than 200 hours working on the terrain for the first chapter of the Project (It’s not complicated I’m just not very good at remembering how to use 3ds Max so I’m relearning) I’ve been painting again.

5 small paintings of mushrooms picked off the lawn, and some poppy heads

Dried Poppies from the garden

And I’ve just started a still life of the bathroom window sill.

bathroom window sill – work in progress

I’ve also got two more months of drawing every day

The finished gallery from September can be seen here

and October through this link

The drawings are posted to Twitter and Instagram each day.

I also completed the drawings that illustrate the beginning of this post, and made some small paintings of holly leaves that I’m not sure about yet.

Large Holly Leaf

Holly leaves

and made a maquette of oak leaves as part of the gardens project introductory scene.

oak leaf maquette