Id been walking and drawing through most of February making marks while going back and for between home and Cardiff Met – about a 15 minute walk. I had used 4 concertina sketch books and filled them with different kind of overlapping traces – I had become immersed in my changing attention – the different traces – and my responses to the traces. I also used a walking contraption – shown in another blog post to explore what it was like to make continuous marks. I was enjoying the new looking at a familiar path -I was loving my new oil stiks which seemed just right to grab texture and gesture – I was also loving the freedom I felt while making waxy marks with a blender stik – not to be revealed until I washed it over with this water colour traces of the next journey.
I was all set to carry on with all this in Ambleside – I was looking forward to dong familiar walks with a new added drawing perspective.
How come I had forgotten how demanding the terrain and weather can be – or how much talking and just being with I do when walking with loved ones? I ended up with a new perspective but not through drawing – through intending to draw and then not drawing. I noticed how much we storied our lives each year by marking familiar and new walks – the walk we always do on the first day – I don’t remember this bit – was it always this steep – or have they cut the trees this year – do you remember the year we came when we had just ………the years we have seen red squirrels or not … the years when different friends and family had joined us or not –
So – walking and – noticing – how here drawing would be an unwelcome distraction and an encumbrance that would distance me from the matters in hand – watching where I was putting my feet – and being present with my walking companions. Whereas drawing had been my companion in itself on the walk to college – had helped me find new magic in the pavements of my neighbourhood.
My small camera was less of an encumbrance and I am happy to share some shots of well loved paths.
I am left thinking some more on what it is to draw and not to draw.
