Some time ago I found an old wiro notebook in a drawer. A scruffy wiro bound notebook with a photo of 2 men in a kayak with a bear on the front cover. In that notebook I found terrible sketches drawn in pencil made while travelling in 1991. One sketch leapt out at me. It was a rough pencil sketch of Mt Ararat from a backpacking trip to eastern Turkey. The sketch really surprised me – it was a very basic pencil sketch, drawn using a .5mm technical pencil on a cheap notepad. The sketch is just black and white… To my surprise the sounds and smells of the day came flooding back. Meeting some Kurdish goat herders and their flock near the base of Mt Ararat, about 10km from the Iranian border on a bright sunny but cool, alpine day. Along with memories of driving across the mountain steppe in an old Renault 19 and the smells of chai and coffee in a Doğubayazıt pasta solunu. It all came back come flooding back! Why did it evoke such vivid memories? I’m not really sure to be honest. Maybe t...
Turns out The Toy Makers Cottage is actually a childcare business! I enjoyed capturing the wysteria over the picket fence.
I'm quite happy with this sketch, but at the end of the day I failed too – failed to capture what is the essence of Arch Hill – the fact that these old houses are clinging to the side of a steep gully! I'll try to get that next time.
I'm drawing lots of these old beauties for the upcoming Past to Present exhibition at Railway Street Gallery from the 16th March through to 3rd of April.
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