Procession

Completed November 2024

Procession revisits the exposed roots of the trees at Folly Wood, near UrchFont in Wiltshire (see end of post for links to previous drawings). In fact, I revisited the location in the summer (2024) and took some fresh photographs. It was somewhat greener than it had been in January 2022.

For this drawing, I used handmade Sunn hemp paper (which has lovely, wiggly, “deckle” edges and I decided to work in coloured inks (no black Indian ink at all!) and to restrict it to marks made using my fountain pens and dip pens. This was quite a time consuming task given that the paper is 57 x 81cm (a little larger than its nominal 57 x 76cm full Imperial size). I was using de Atramentis document inks (document inks are designed to be both fountain-pen-friendly and permanent, which is quite a tough call). There is some possibility of a colour shift with these inks, but this style should maintain the drawing’s integrity even if the colours do change a little.

I didn’t have a full set of the available colours when I started the drawing (and I still don’t), but it became apparent that something was missing when I started to add green to what was, then, a predominantly brown drawing:

That something was the colour blue, which I knew would add depth to the shadows and fill the chromatic gap between the browns and greens. I ordered a selection of blues and they did, indeed, make a big difference.

It being summer, there was a lot of lush foiage, including a profision of ferns at the base of the gorge. Outlining them in green didn’t do their virancy justice, and I was concerned that hatching or scribbling would be too much (not for the paper, which is as tough as old boots, but for the cohesion of the image). So I stretched my decision to restrict myself to the marks made by pens and used the pens to throw ink at the paper in splats. It wasn’t accurate but I do think it was effective.

This picture has been entered for an Open Call and I’m waiting for selection to be completed (due 29 March).

Previous drawings of this location: