Exercise brief
Aim
For this exercise you are responding to the memory of a place, or a walk, you have been on recently. You will be thinking about the atmosphere of the place - the sounds, textures, quality of light. What were the weather conditions of the day? You can also refer to photographs or sketches for reference, but try to re-imagine your response to being there and how it felt.
Method
Start by reflecting on the place, make a few notes. What words or phrases conjure up the atmosphere - was the light so bright it was dissolving the edges of the tree leaves, or was the mud so slippery you can recall your tentative steps along a wet path? Try to remember how it felt to be in that space.
Working on A3 or similar, make two or three drawings using mixed media such as pastel, crayon, ink and watercolour. You can allow yourself at least two hours for each piece, or longer if you need to, but don’t try to make an accurate and detailed depiction - think about what you find interesting about the place. You might like to start by applying a wash of dilute ink or watercolour to suggest the kind of sky you remember, then start adding some other landscape elements. Or you might start by loosely drawing in the composition - referring to your photographs to help you with shapes of buildings or other architectural features.
When you have finished your first piece ask yourself - is this the effect I wanted to create? Does it have enough detail - or too much? Does this choice of media work well to capture the atmosphere of the place? Respond to these questions with your next piece by adding or taking away elements, or trying a completely different approach. If you like you can keep going, making more studies about your place.
Reflection
Look at the work you have made and compare the results. How much did you use memory, and how often did you find yourself responding to the quality of the materials you were using? So often, drawing and painting is like a conversation between ideas, subject matter and materials. Reflect on this and make some notes in your learning log.Initial reflections
I was remembering a day in Damgan Plage in the middle of the Easter holidays. It was unusually hot for that time of year and we decided to spend the day at the beach. It was bright and sunny, I remember feeling blinded by the light. I remember the feeling of the warm sand and broken shells under my feet, the white reverberating. I also remember the vast space, the sea, calm and flat, with tiny waves. The water was icy cold. There was not a cloud in the sky. The sky was bright blue and the sea was emerald. I remember a long walk with my cousin and reaching the end of the beach where rusty orange rocks replaced the sand. They were a few brave swimmers, including my spouse and daughter. Walking back, I could see the bright and colourful parasols. Ours was the most colourful. There was an abandoned bright orange bucket. A kid playing alone with the sand. This reminds me of my childhood, I was always fascinated by the water. I felt happy, in my element.
Memory drawing no. 1
I wrote this in my sketchbook and looked through photos I had taken on that day and sketched a composition in my notebook.
Using this as a guide, I worked on an A3 watercolour block. I first tested some watercolours to find the colours for the sea, the sand and the beach. Then I worked on the parasol using pastels. I used charcoal for the rock in the sea and the tree in the distance, and acrylic markers and crayons for the bucket and for the figures.
I like how the final image is not a copy of one snapshot but a photomontage of things that I noticed during that day. I was trying to be suggestive and convey the memory rather than render an “objective” reproduction of a particular viewpoint. In the end I decided to leave the house as a suggestion to reinforce the feeling that this was a memory. Each element reminds me of my family. The parasol where we sat, the bucket reminds me of my childhood, the figures remind me of my daughter and my spouse, the rock reminds me of the long walk I went on with my cousin that day. At first I thought I should add details to the sand and sea but I decided to leave it as is to convey the brightness, the feeling of vast empty space you get at that beach.
Memory drawing no. 2
For the second drawing, I wanted to focus on my memory of the kaleidoscope of sensations on that day: the hot weather, the blinding bright light, the scratchy shells and sand. I wanted to change viewpoint so this time I use one photograph as a source of inspiration but I tried to render a more gestural, textured image.
Final reflections
The first drawing worked from memory as a kind of collage, bringing together fragments from different moments, perspectives and photographs into a single felt image of the day. For the second, I took a different approach: starting from one photograph, I became more meditative, using gesture and texture to express the sensory memory of the place rather than to describe it. Looking at the two together, what strikes me is how differently memory operates depending on whether you let it roam freely or anchor it to a single point of focus.
