RIVER IN AUTUMN.

On Tuesday, December 2, 2014, Martin Law <martin.rainbowmaker@gmail.com> wrote:

Talking of rambles in the wood along the river in autumn and the process of the painting of the same name.

The meandering serpentine long intestine of artistic assimilation of nature’s nutritious

impressions, photographically captured, compared, and contemplated to a refined mulch.

Imagination blending celtic autumn realms with overtones of Sung dynasty landscape scrolls evocative of profound integrity refined, and wild abundance of woods and thickets in the mist somehow weaves through archetypal images along the riverbank.

Being the epitome of the opposite of all brash trash, leaving only calm naturalness just as it is.

Enlarging photos on a screen to skim the rippled water with an urge for soft pencil on pure primed white wove dot grain texture of taut canvas.

Two attempts in a row to freely draw two different things, both duly erased for being not yet it.

Yet somehow organically the scene i’d seen emerged from the leeway of memory and actually manifesting optical perspective.

Thereby spontaneously immersed for two evenings until dawn, carefully coaxing on to canvas with a lean pencil point slantwise.

Pencils are important, mightier than a Mars probe and better for drawing. The pencil is a versatile tool, it does what you want it to do, doesn’t require recharging and doesn’t eavesdrop or intrude in your drawing room.

And more, the un-camouflaged and unedited loose tangle of hair-like windblown lines and soft graphite shading can then be turned to tone, or stone, with just the faintest wish of a wash of a fine soft water filled brush.

Lightly illuminating spaces between forms contained, leaves a web-work tracery like mosaics of stained glass. Linear contour of rock and root mutate in a weave of webbed lines soft as a whisper at first, serving to bring into relief what emerges from smudged anomalies.

Forms following their own uncontrived authenticity either gel, or transmute accordingly. Anomalous brush marks randomly hint arboreal runes of entrance to portals and dimensions.

And like a river in late autumn going with the flow, foibles, failings, fables, and all. Playful and guided by true imagination

A muse, an amusing but somehow unassuming word to use. In respect of cultured discipline, frugal refinement of pine wood smoke ink dilutions, and minimal colour on soft white.

RIVER IN AUTUMN, is a monochrome with muted minimal colour fresh off the brush. Being both painting, and by contrast, drawing, reflecting elemental water wisdom in swirls and spirals.

A pencil has potential and you don’t need stencils, move out of that groove. First we were assaulted by a civilization of boxes only to be bombarded with sacred geometry

So, pause and gaze at the world of all that flows, specific foam shapes swirl in vortices defying rigours and rules, arbitrary structure, gracing the floating world with outrageous circles and cycles of free form flow.

Think of this panel as a portion of pencil poetry in process. Imagine it as being a primal piece of pagan patchwork embroidery. With a blend of hanging bamboo landscape scrolls and Sung dynasty elementals of literary ink. This product is free of all anti-occidents.~

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Martin Rainbowmaker.

MOUNTAINS MOVE.

On Mon, November 24, 2014, Martin Law <martin.rainbowmaker@gmail.com> wrote:

‘Unless your heart be the size of a grain of mustard seed, mountains are moving.’~

It may be true to say that mountains move. At least, whenever i look i find them to be moving. Better still than moving mountains is to be able to be moved by them. Though many may remain unmoved, and move along lacking a loving look.

It may be true to say that mountains rise up from the earth, and equally true to say they fall down to the sea. They are even seen to be rising from the deep. Diving like leviathans down to the ocean floor, only to arise again as a distant shore.

Peaks are often seen in passing, half hidden by a range of hoary hills. Like diving dolphin fins, or starkly surreal as spectral ships with sombre silhouetted sails.

 

Vanishing behind rising ridges like humpback whales with scaly skin, brooding dark against a sinking twilight sky.

While, on a still and distant gulling cry of day, a blue limpid liquid mirror laps. Fringed by froth and foam of lulling fronds, the slow rise and fall seeps back between singing stones, a line erased to sink in silted sand. The swish and pull of the swaying sea.

Low window view between backyard walls, of a distant peak. A constant kitchen companion, weather warning from the west. When opaque grey approaching rain, blanks the mountain long before a downpour pelts the glass.

A quiet inner affection pervades all such small familiar facets and details of the day. The worldly world of war regards as mundane facts, void of innate significance. Insulating ego from feeling, present poetic beauty in the ordinary.

Naturally, noting such as being signs and promptings for projects of imaginative creation, the mountain called forth an intent, the seed of peak experience. Through days of late November rains.

A new day dawned though i woke late, to a pure blue oasis of a day. Down to the round curved strand and jutting headland. Flat low tide around the promontory point, to see what the sea had to say.

Zooms fall short of the pyramid-peak, rugged ridged with rounded shoulders down, and the island’s tail bearing small green fields below.

Boulders backed by a cleft cliff face, scattering the rock strewn place. Black stones green stained dragged down to where the tide turns.

Spreading outward across a smooth expanse of unprecedented cloud-free cobalt sky and sea, such that adequate words fail me.

The focus of original intent ‘literally’ moved by circumstance or chance, to ‘pan out’ (could that be a pagan term?) the context all inclusive and there may be a lesson there.

Being but an exploratory trawl, casting about for artistic inspiration and netting a good catch, twenty seven shots in all. Many other possible focusses reflected on along the way in coming round to the point.

But what a calm and tranquil sea. Cloud-free sky as blue as blue can be.

A wish of peace in late November.

Images of beauty to remember. ~

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Martin Rainbowmaker.