Time Present

Recently I’ve been able to make a start on some new work, and the process of this modest beginning has been a truly joyful thing. I hadn’t realised how much I’ve been needing to do this.

So far, it’s about time, experience and memory. I’m beginning with the opening lines from T S Eliot’s Four Quartets as inspiration:

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.

What a vast line that is: All time is unredeemable. It’s irreversible and we can never get it back. The only time we can be sure of is time past, present in memory only.

The sketchbook I’m using for the wet media is a Fabriano aquarelle A4 sketchbook, 200gsm pages (no affiliation). Just firm enough for taking wet paint but not so stiff that the pages don’t bend.

Of course it had to have a cover:

And some details from its pages:

Mostly I’ve been exploring using watercolour, ink and collage. The above layered stitched work in progress is based on this paper collage:

I’ve been doing very loose sketchbook work, which is a great thing. I like the way it can be more a physical than cerebral process. I like to paint standing up rather than sitting because it somehow enables you to inhabit the process more, and to move around over the page more easily. It seems to generate and capture more energy. Drawing and painting can involve your whole arm as well as your hand, making expressive abstract marks and laying down whatever colours speak to you in that moment.

These are four separate sketches (unintentionally four quartets, perhaps), using inks, watercolours, and basic mark-making techniques, with no preconceived ideas about where it’s headed or what it’s going to be. Not my usual colour palette, but each one valuable in its own way, and time well spent. Even if you make something you don’t like much, it’s always worthwhile because you learn something. I think all of these might translate to cloth and stitch.

Also some calmer blocks and stripes, just to see.

It’s exciting to see these colours, shapes and compositions emerging. It may or may not lead somewhere, but for now it’s enough in itself. I have much more to read, and more blank sketchbook pages to fill, and it’s utterly delicious.