Day 3

Day 3

Sunday was a family day so I did not manage to get any time back in the Tower, but today, Monday I was fortunate enough to be able to spend most of the day in the Tower.

My intention was also to get to St David’s Cathedral Library but in actual fact I got carried away by painting and talking to the lovely people who came in to look at what was going on in the Tower.

One of the people to walk in and see what I was doing was the Sculptor Eddie Hallam.

I am familiar with his work through working at Workshop Wales Art Gallery this summer.

His work is well worth investigating, a very gifted artist, very humble, and very wonderful for me to chat with him spontaneously. A man so much further along in his career and so full of advise and wisdom it was a real treat for me to meet him having been looking at his work all summer. Definitely a highlight of my day in the Tower!

I brought in another 3 sized canvases, and whilst also working on the paper pieces I had started, and looking at my sketches, I also stained all of the canvases I had with different base colours, all stemming from a warm colour pallet. Ochres, yellows, umbers and burnt sienna were some of the stains us used on the canvases today. Whilst on the paper work I began bringing in raw umber and burnt umber and adding viridian green hue to those pieces that had only ochres and umbers on them.

I slightly over worked some of the simpler pieces of paper which had gesso on them but these pieces of paper are for play, so it doesn’t matter, and all is done in the spirit of exploration.

St Non’s cross seems to be something I want to explore visually.  The drama of the brick work on the chapel next to the cross stone seems to keep coming back in these loose paper pieces and some of the pieces on board.

i find it interesting how I can surround myself with my research and glance at photos and sketches but also but them down and work with the paint itself and see the things I have found interesting automatically finding their way into the paintings.

The ability to just get on and work in this space is really something I am enjoying the most.

I won’t be in the space again till Thursday so there are a couple of days for the fumes to dissipate and for me to look more into the story of St Non.

I want more information on the rape, or some kind of piece of writing that may talk about this traumatic experience from her perspective.  There is time for me to explore this more over the next few days while I am unable to go to the Tower due to work commitments.