• Head on fire

    Contemporary art psychology and mental health - head on fire

    Psychological contemporary art: Head on Fire

    Pencil sketch on paper. August 2018

    This sketch, drawn spontaneously in a sketchbook, contains obviously strong psychological symbolism. It shows a floating head on fire. Are the flames the hair? Or are they the person’s thoughts or state of mind?

    It’s an image with associations to psychology, mental health, mental illness and wellbeing.

  • Stone eye: surrealist sketch

    contemporary surrealism - giant stone eye

    Stone eye

    Ink, gouache, digital. July 2018

    A surrealist sketch of a gigantic stone eye resting on the ground. A mysterious pipe-like cylinder extends upwards from the eye. A similar eye in the distance shows the pipe-like structure extending unfeasibly high into the air.
    The image is almost definitely influenced by surrealist art, including the surrealism of Max Ernst and Rene Magritte.

  • Sketch from the imagination – dancing teapots

    surreal sketch from the imagination – teapots

    Sketch from the imagination – dancing teapots.

    Ink and watercolour on paper. 7x9cm. April, 2018

    I like to sit down with a sketchbook every so often and draw whatever comes into my head. Surreal objects with bird-like features are a recurring theme. These slightly surreal dancing teapots are a good example.

  • Dark Cone – pencil drawing from the imagination (with ink additions)

    contemporary art pencil drawing - cone - geometric form in landscape

    Dark Cone
    Pencil drawing with ink additions on paper. June 2017

    A pencil sketch from the imagination of a dark cone set in a featureless landscape.
    The slightly blurred quality of the pencil marks in this drawing combined with the sharper and darker ink lines create an unsettling atmosphere in the image.

  • Drawing from the imagination – a very small sketch of a very bizarre creature

    drawing from the subconscious - drawing from the imagination

    Bizarre creature – sketch from the subconscious

    Ink sketch on paper 9x7cm. Digital colouring. April 2017

    A small drawing from the imagination that is in one of my sketchbooks.
    I sometimes sit down with a sketchbook when I have a few minutes to spare and just draw whatever comes into my head, unmediated. It’s a sort of subconscious, automatic drawing. I used to think that such sketches would be a good way to encourage the development of new concepts and motifs without too much conscious thought channelling my work down well trodden pathways. However, I soon found that it was actually a way of revealing to oneself one’s inner obsessive visions, as variations on the same themes inevitably lay themselves out on the page time after time. This particular sketch, I see from the notes beside it, was drawn in the gardens of Hatfield House, a stately home in Hertfordshire, while sitting next to the very fine wisteria that’s growing there. There seems to be no link between the two.
    The colour in the image was added later, after scanning the sketch into my laptop.

  • Spontaneous watercolour sketch from the subconscious

    Contemporary art from the unconscious - spontaneous watercolour painting

    Watercolour sketch from the subconscious

    Watercolour, gouache and ink on paper, with collage. 2017

    This painting was an exercise in creating something from the subconscious without any preconceived idea about what I was about to create.
    It turns out to be a slightly sinister landscape, in the centre of which there is something that may or may not be a living entity. Early on in the development of this sketch this object looked more like a strangely shaped rock, but the addition of colour to it removed it from the rest of the landscape and turned it into something separate from the landscape. The blue dot in the image, which is a collaged circle of coloured paper, gives the possibly living entity an air of sentience, as it seems to be contemplating a strange sun or moon in the sky.

  • Umbrellas in contemporary art

    contemporary art umbrella drawing

    Umbrella drawing

    Ink on paper. Digital shading. 2017

    A sketch of an idea for a sculpture, showing an umbrella mounted at the top of a conical structure that has short filaments protruding from it.
    I have a fascination with umbrellas for some reason. I think it’s possibly due to a mixture of their slightly Heath Robinsonesque mechanical structure – the hinged flexible rods that are levered outwards to support a stretched fabric cover – and their pleasing form when in the open position. Not to mention their practicality. And the fact that they are, despite their mechanical intricacy, very much taken for granted and dismissed as objects of great mundanity.
    My first ever published piece of artwork was an absurdist redesign of the umbrella, published in the Sunday Times in about 1974.

  • Pen and ink sketch of cows

    pen and ink sketch cows

    Dip pen and ink sketch on paper.: Cows, Cantegral, Dordogne, France

    Dip pen and ink on paper. September 1991

    A sketchbook page of cattle grazing in a field.

    The sketch was drawn in situ, using dip pen and ink.

    Dip pen and ink is a favourite medium for sketching. Different nibs on different paper produce different results. I’ve got a supply of hundreds of nibs in case they ever go out of production!

  • Anthropomorphism in contemporary art

    anthropomorphism in contemporary art - dandelion seed drawing

    Anthropomorphism: dandelion seeds with human bodies

    Pen and ink sketch on paper September 2015

    A dandelion seed head in which the seeds have anthropomorphic human form.
    The image is disturbingly ambiguous. Is the fact that one of the seeds is drifting away from the seed head a sign of freedom or simply a sign of fate? And what can be read into the fact that the humans in the anthropomorphic seeds have no heads?
    Anthropomorphism is a common theme in my work.