Moon Drawings. I have just updated this site with my
2022 Moon drawings and thought it was about time I added a blog post about them. The last couple of years have seen me becoming more and more obsessed with the moon and the night sky. Through all the strange experiences we had since the pandemic unfolded in 2020 I looked for the Moon as a way of connecting with something outside of our home confinements, or as a kind of natural marker of time passing and even as a companion. Actually I have always sought it's presence, appreciated it's beauty. As I child my grandmother presented me with an embroidered sampler which contained the words 'The moon doth with delight, Look round her when the heavens are bare' from a Wordsworth poem which fascinated me. The Moon has always symbolised something special.
In 2020 I kind of stepped up my interest and with an increase in need for some therapeutic mark making I had an idea for a project, it was around June/July at the time and I wished I had thought of it earlier at beginning of the year which would have somehow felt neater. I had other projects on the go so I sketched out a few ideas, waited, and from January 2021, heading into a second lockdown, I began. I effectively made a promise to myself that I would at least once a month set time aside to take joy in some abstract drawing, take a moment to reflect and pursue a line of celestial enquiry and know that little by little I would be making art, even if the rest of life had been taken over. I decided to return to the simple but powerful circle, set myself some small guidelines and honour each passing full moon with a drawing. The guidelines being ink and pencil only, start with a compass drawn circle and the surface could vary. Sometimes I had a plan of what to draw and sometimes I just gave in to the spontaneous.
Interestingly the premise of these drawings had come from the same principles as my grids for the Somerset Reacquainted project which also began in 2020 but I hadn't really thought about them being linked until I came to put a body of work together for the 'Time and Tide' exhibition in summer 2022. Looking at my notes in these early sketchbook pages I see words like; Numerology, Geometry, Measurement, A point of reflection, A learning and understanding throughout the year. The grids are a gathering of moments and colour, looking and recording and developing.
Both the Moons and the Grids are occupied with a marking of time, a promise of personal reflection and learning and ultimately pursuing a connection to ourselves and our surroundings both intimately and universally.
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| Wolf Moon January 2021, taken on Panasonic Lumix |
 | Moon Drawing September 2022
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| Thinking about Moons and Grids and Abstract Photography 2022 |
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| Moon Drawing Collection 2022 |
Moon Drawings. I have just updated this site with my 2022 Moon drawings and thought it was about time I added a blog post about them. The last couple of years have seen me becoming more and more obsessed with the moon and the night sky. Through all the strange experiences we had since the pandemic unfolded in 2020 I looked for the Moon as a way of connecting with something outside of our home confinements, or as a kind of natural marker of time passing and even as a companion. Actually I have always sought it's presence, appreciated it's beauty. As I child my grandmother presented me with an embroidered sampler which contained the words 'The moon doth with delight, Look round her when the heavens are bare' from a Wordsworth poem which fascinated me. The Moon has always symbolised something special.
In 2020 I kind of stepped up my interest and with an increase in need for some therapeutic mark making I had an idea for a project, it was around June/July at the time and I wished I had thought of it earlier at beginning of the year which would have somehow felt neater. I had other projects on the go so I sketched out a few ideas, waited, and from January 2021, heading into a second lockdown, I began. I effectively made a promise to myself that I would at least once a month set time aside to take joy in some abstract drawing, take a moment to reflect and pursue a line of celestial enquiry and know that little by little I would be making art, even if the rest of life had been taken over. I decided to return to the simple but powerful circle, set myself some small guidelines and honour each passing full moon with a drawing. The guidelines being ink and pencil only, start with a compass drawn circle and the surface could vary. Sometimes I had a plan of what to draw and sometimes I just gave in to the spontaneous.
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