Having spent some time in St Ives in Cornwall I had lots of photographs and sketches of the rocks in the area. In particular I was attracted to a group of rocks at one end of Porthmeor beach next to The Island. The variation in form and colour of these rocks provides a kaleidoscope of possible images from which abstracted interpretations can be made. The resulting images are very different from those I had found through my close-up examinations of the pebbles and shells of Shingle Street reflecting the different geologies and landscapes of the two geographical areas.
Porthmeor Beach, St Ives Cornwall
The range of shapes, textures and colours found in the rocks is quite amazing.
Working in my new studio also allowed me to experiment with different ways of approaching my practice and in particular I was able to work with textures much more freely. I was keen to explore the three dimensionality of the rock surfaces and to this end I have been using materials such as tiling adhesive and grout laid onto the support which I then work back into in various ways and cutting through layers of acrylic paint.
Firstly I go through a process of studying all the photographs and selecting parts of the images that I feel could make interesting abstract shapes as I had done with the stones and shells from the Suffolk coast.
These particular Cornish rocks have strong lines formed by the geological process that have shaped the coastline over billions of years and I wanted to capture this element of their structure.
There then followed a process of applying layers of tile paste with acrylic paint which is then sanded back and other colours applied to build up the structure.
The final painting:
Porthmeor I – Impact
Mixed media on canvas (100 x 50 cm)
As a second work I wanted to push the boundaries of abstracting the image in terms of form and colour whilst still keeping the feel of the rock. The image I chose had groups of barnacles at various places on the rock and I used these as a structural element to the painting.
I also decided to further emphasise the lines and use them to create a more linearly structured image.
Porthmeor II – Segments
Mixed media on canvas (61 x 51 cm)
A third painting was based on a section of the rocks that had a feel of different strata almost like a cross section of the geology with defined lines of separation of the different coloured rocks.
I decided to emphasise this layering by using a horizontal format on a 50 x 100 cm canvas.
At the time there was much discussion about the government’s decision to grant more licences for North Sea oil extraction and this made me think about how the dark stripes could represent the oil-bearing layers beneath the seabed. For this reason I decided to title the work ‘Leave it There’.
Porthmeor III – Leave It There
Mixed media on canvas (50 x 100 cm)
For a fourth piece I chose a different section of the rocks that was more uniform in colour but which had interesting patterns.
This section of rock seemed to have a figure with an animal of some sort and to me it felt like a witch with her familiar and so I decided to base a painting around this theme.
I wanted to try cutting into the base layer of tile cement using some lino-print cutting tools and so used MDF as a support as I was worried that using canvas might be too risky.
Having applied and textured the cement and smoothed the rougher parts using a random orbital sander I cut in the main figure outlines.
I then worked more into the surface before using a dry-brush technique to bring out more of the texture.
Porthmeor IV – The Witch Rock
Mixed media on MDF (80 x 40 cm)
This process of working into the cement then using a dry-brush technique to enhance the textures was something that I wanted to explore further. I had a stock of A3 sized 3mm thick MDF sheets that were sealed and gesso-ed and so I decided to use these as a basis for experimentation.
Looking through my photographs, there were a couple that I found intriguing, one was a very monochrome image of a group of limpets on a rock and another was an image of coloured stones in a sandy gap between a group of rocks.
Unlike barnacles that attach themselves permanently to a rock and feed by waving fern-like tendrils from a hole at the top, limpets move around grazing on the surface of the rocks. In the image above it looks as if the limpets are contained within a depression in the rock as if they were corralled in a paddock.
The painting uses the same technique of cutting, sanding and layering followed by dry-brushing to emphasise the texture.
Porthmeor V – The Grazers
Mixed media on MDF (42 x 29 cm)
This image I selected as a basis for a painting for the shape and colour of the stones. I simplified the shapes and decided to emphasise the green and reddish-brown stones to create a more abstract image.
As well as the dry-brushing to give texture I also shaded the rocks to give a three dimensional feel to the image. To paint the sand I tried various methods but decided in the end that I would just have to paint the individual grains separately using a fine point brush and a mixture of colours.
Porthmeor VI – Green Stone Red Stone
Mixed media on MDF (42 x 29 cm)