Burne-Jones: Forms Divinely Beautiful

Recently I visited an exhibition I’ve been looking forward to since I first saw its announcement. That one of my favourite local places; Newstead Abbey, was having a Pre-Raphaelite exhibition was a surprise to say the least! Having traveled across the country to see Pre-Raphaelite artworks and exhibitions for the past 10+ years this one is certainly the closest to home I’m ever likely to visit!

After a few weeks of waiting for the initial rush to have made their visit I could wait no longer and headed off to Byron’s pile to see some Edward Burne-Jones!
The exhibition is a little different to most Pre-Raphaelite exhibitions in the sense that what’s on display isn’t a collection of paintings, but is actually a folio of Photogravure prints. As a printer this interests me greatly as the value of etchings and prints are often played down and under appreciated by so many.

The folio on display is one of 200 which were commissioned by Burne-Jones’ son, Philip, to celebrate and showcase his fathers work. It was created by the Berlin Photographic company using photogravure, a technique using a photographic negative to create an etched plate to print from. This skilled technique produces high quality prints which at the time was a very popular method of reproduction and sharing art. Interestingly the Pre-Raphaelites were one of the first art movements to make use of photography in creating their work and to draw on this new technology, so it’s interesting to see how new and changing technology and techniques have been embraced in other ways.

Having seen lots of Burne-Jones paintings over the years his often very muted palette lends itself well to black and white reproduction, something which might not be said for more vibrant artists within the movement (Millais perhaps). The pieces on display are, to me at least, beautiful works of art in their own right. The depth of tone in these monochrome prints is truly stunning, and you don’t lose anything from these dreamy visions due to their lack of hue.

Learning from Rossetti gave Burne-Jones a similarly unique view and creative flair to his idol. The flowing hair, plump lips and long necks of Rosetti’s recurring female aesthetics all shine through in Burne-Jones work. All be it his own ideal of female beauty and perfection, but Burne-Jones style and stylisation of themes is unique in the movement, with a distinct nod to Rossetti.

Burne-Jones, like Waterhouse, is a great portrayer of myths and legends in his work. With many of his pieces focusing on tales and stories rather than the more religious tendencies of earlier Pre-Raphaelites. These later members of the movement were masters at depicting incredible far off places where heroes and monsters reign and damsels and their tantalising beauty await rescue. Burne-Jones escaped the real world through his art, and shared this beautiful world with us all in turn.
For me, Burne-Jones style only heightens the sense of ethereal, mystical realms and long forgotten times of our ancient past as he steers away from the photorealism of the movement and towards a more stylised portrayal of scenes.

My favourite piece on display, 'The Beguiling of Merlin' is captivating. Merlin's eyes pierce out at you from the paper, so wild and alive. They seem to follow you and hold your gaze in an eerie, haunting way, stirring emotions only art can make us feel.

This exhibition seems to have been quietly understated among the artistic community. Nobody I speak to knows about it, and online information is scarce. I understand that the current pandemic has caused the closure of Newstead temporarily, but the exhibition is still available to view virtually here: https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=cahQQShRaT1&hl=1&guides=0&kb=0&qs=1&ts=3&st=1800 

and when it reopens I urge everyone to go and immerse themselves in this dream world for just a time. Not that I think it will take any encouragement to get people out and visiting galleries and beautiful places again once this is all over!

My only criticism of the exhibition was I was hoping to buy a book, print, postcards, anything! But there was nothing sadly.

Art in Focus: Treebeard

Throughout most of November and December I have been working on a top secret piece of artwork to be gifted to some of my oldest and best friends for Christmas. Now that the cats out of the bag and they have the piece I can talk a little more about it’s creation and concept!

As some may be aware, Tolkien is a absolutely huge influence on me, having visited some of his old haunts in Oxford, his grave and an exhibition at the Bodelian in 2018. The Hobbit is my favourite book of all time and I collect editions of Lord of the Rings (and almost anything Tolkien related) whenever possible. So it’s probably natural that at some point I did some Tolkien related art.

Many years ago I designed my half sleeve on the theme of ‘good and evil in Middle Earth’ (kindly tattooed by the super talented Nick Brinsley) and the main focus of this is my imagining of Treebeard, one of my favourite characters. (I always felt a huge affinity with Treebeard and probably wanted to be him more than any other character.)

Fast forward several years and me and good friends went to the Rodney Matthews exhibition Electric Rock near Birmingham to see many prints and originals on offer. My favourite was Rodney’s depiction of Treebeard (which I’ve been looking at in books since childhood). My friend ordered herself this print as she liked it so much. Little did I know she also ordered one for me and kept it safe over 9 months until my birthday! What a wonderful surprise, absolutely blew me away!

So, I got to thinking how I could express my gratitude and give a gift that really meant as much as some of the gifts she has given me over the years! So, I decided creating something was the only way.

I started doodling Treebeard in early November based on what I always saw reading the books (I refused to see Lord of the Rings until I had read the books, hence only seeing The Return of the King at the cinema). He closely resembles the Treebeard of my tattoo as this was also his basis. Just with rather a lot more moss, and of course mushrooms.
On my recent autumnal walks I took lots of photos of tree textures, lichen, moss and fungi to help as reference material.

Similarly to when putting together my tattoo design, Treebeard is imagined, but other elements are based on the depictions in the film. In my tattoo Sauron is based on Christopher Lees portrayal, the Orthanc and eye of Sauron also inspired by the film. Yet in the style of an illustration (in particular the way I tend to draw, which is not photorealism). Merry and Pippin who I chose to include in the painting are loosely based on the movie casting, with similar hair and clothes, but again, are an illustrative interpretation.

Creating the piece was a very enjoyable challenge. The knotwork in particular was infuriating! A very unforgiving art form! The piece consists of a complete pen layer (below) to build the depth of the piece, and then watercolour work to bring him truly to life. Interestingly this was the first piece I experimented in adding some metallic watercolour to bring out certain areas and give them a bit of pazazz. In total the piece took around 25 hours. As usual in the winter months the light is the biggest challenge to most creatives. Unfortunately I had to resort to doing the majority of the work under artificial light, which is never ideal, but I was happy with the results considering this.

I hope my friends are happy with their painting and enjoy it for many years to come!

Work in progress: The Green Man series

For the longest time, in my first ideas book after finishing University I have had scribblings of series which are still patiently waiting to be realised. Every year I declare I’m going to finally start on my own Green Man series and do justice to these nature spirits I dreamed the faces of so many years ago. And every year things happen, other ideas crop up and I continue to keep them on the back burner.

But as this year drew to a close I decided enough was enough. I started working on progressing my thumbnail sketches into full size line work, and then onto paper, returning to my most common mixed media technique using biro and watercolour (as opposed to my recent dip pen experiments).

One daunting issue with this series has always been the sheer number of ideas I have. If I work on them all the series will be mammoth! So I’ve decided to be selective (for now) and initially work on what I’m calling ‘the four seasons’. It’s quite frustrating as I really want to realise a lot of the other characters, but that may have to be a battle for another day!

Because of the detail involved in these pieces they are proving very time consuming. Never one to make life easy for myself I decided to also incorporate some knotwork in the form of borders as a nod to our Celtic history and pre-Christian traditions and beliefs in Britain. This has proved a real challenge and is somewhat unforgiving if you make any errors. Complete precision is essential but tough. I can see why manuscript scholars claimed they would put one error on each page because only god is perfect, it’s near impossible not to make one! (Good cover story lads!)

So far with these pieces I’ve gotten a lot of pen work done, but as ever with this time of year there’s so few hours of daylight in which to work, making moving onto my watercolour layer difficult indeed.
I’m hoping that now with the passing of midwinter and the lengthening of days once more I can begin to get some colour into the pieces and truly bring them to life!

The Alchemy Series

Recently I have been hard at work on the sometimes painfully detailed Alchemy series. While I think quite easily I could keep on going with this series and dreaming up more weird and wacky designs and picking even more of my favourite creatures to feature I decided to call a halt on it at 6, as its a nice round number and a number of different eco-systems and creatures have been covered.

Originally the Alchemy series was born out of the twisted take on the idea of being a creator. My idea of some ancient fellow using mysterious magic and methods long lost to modern man to create these curious creatures prevailed throughout the series and often led me to pursue some of the more bizarre creations nature has to offer. Each creature sits inert in the bottle of their birth, surveying their surroundings and place in the world. This mere man, a magician or a deity depending on your perspective, has unleashed these curious creatures upon us through the power of his alchemic practice. Does his ancient practice make him a god? Or are all those whose imagination knows no bounds capable of creation?

The series was a truly mammoth undertaking with over 130 hours work creating the final pieces and countless hours of photoshop work preparing them for print.

The Alchemy series is available to buy as a set of A4 prints, or individually, to check them out Click here!

Art in Focus: Hand of Glory

A number of years ago in one of my books full of frenzied ideas I did some doodles inspired by the Hand of Glory, and later adorned the cover with a version of it. Over the years I've repeatedly come back to the idea and desperately hoped that one day I'd manage to fit it into my artwork somewhere. Because the Hand of Glory and it's powerful image always felt quite special to me I knew it had to be something incredible, so I waited for the details and ideas to brew and stew themselves until they formed something I knew would do the Hand of Glory justice.

My fascination with the Hand of Glory first came about at around the age of 14, when I first saw what turned out to be, and still is, my favourite film 'The Wicker Man.' (1973). The film, in all honesty, began my love affair with Horror cinema, and stoked the fires of obsession regarding all things macabre, occult and honestly, heathen. The Hand of Glory which Willow placed upon Sergent Howies bedside table, giving him the impression she wished him to sleep long into their May Day celebrations, differs from most historical texts and descriptions of what a real Hand of Glory looked like. Originally the hand was said to be closed grasping a candle made from the fat of the body from which it is cut. Yet the Wicker Mans depiction shows each finger acting as its own candle, conjuring up a far more sinister image and honestly increasing the impact and the horror of the hand visually.

Since first setting eyes on that hand blazing beside Sergent Howie, perhaps in hindsight hinting at the fate of his own flesh, I have always held a fascination with the image of the Hand of Glory. I have delved into its mysterious and often sparse history, seeking out images of it and interpretations, clearly I am not the only one whose intrigue was sparked by seeing this shocking sight. Artists depictions, though out there, are few and far between. Illustrations as old as the practice itself, strange Victorian etchings and more modern interpretations (some no doubt influenced by The Wicker Man) can be found here and there to visually depict the folklore tales surrounding the fascinating practice. But I was eager to create my own interpretation of the Hand of Glory at long last.

When returning to the Hand of Glory I thumbed back over my notes and doodles from previous years, seeing what the culmination of all those hours of pondering was going to be. I looked at one of the only known specimens of a Hand of Glory in existence (housed at Whitby Museum) and eventually began to sketch, from my own hand, my very own Hand of Glory.

As the design progressed and the basic sketch was complete I began to think about how I wanted the piece to look overall, Id already decided a black background would make the hand stand out, but this sense of darkness surrounding the few flames was something I really wanted to convey. I looked back at some unrelated doodles I had done previously, desperate to make a series with intricate borders reminiscent of Medieval manuscripts, and decided the two fitted together perfectly, like the leaf of some secret Grimoire on dark and sinister magic, a mystery to the majority of the world.

I began refining the border and incorporating some elements I thought would really add to the piece and bring more depth. I added the circular 'portholes' to allow the opportunity to include small pieces of art related to the history and creation of the hand. For the first time I decided to try my hand at something a little different and incorporated some of my poorly written poetry into the border of the piece, relating to the creation and history of the Hand of Glory, providing a little more information for those less familiar with the hand. The poem reads:

'Cut down from sinners gibbet,
Thy earthly movement I inhibit,

Hand of Glory burning bright,

Illuminate me with thy light,

Dead mans magic weave your spell,

Before thy are condemned to Hell.'

This contains some basic information on what the Hand of Glory actually is. A murderer, hanged for their crime, has their left hand cut from their body, as both history and Latin teach us, the left is considered sinister. This is then pickled and the fat from the body is used to form a candle, some texts talk of the use of the hair for a wick but not all. The hand then acts as a macabre candle stick, holding the candle. Folklore legends tell that once lit the Hand of Glory will render those it is used upon motionless. Some tales tell the only way to extinguish one and counter its effects is to douse it in milk, but many tales differ from version to version.

When it came to adding details I decided to keep the idea of the candle holder base originally used in my book cover design many years ago, adding the detail of the handle as an ouroboros, one of my favourite recurring things to slip subtly into my artwork. I also chose to add in the remnants of a lace sleeve still clinging to the wrist desperately, hinting at the former life of its owner and bringing a sense of Victorian grandeur to the piece.

I hope that in my completed Hand of Glory I finally managed to achieve a piece which does justice to that macabre burning hand that mesmerized me so many years ago. And ultimately shaped my interest and love of British Folklore and 'the old gods', creating (in the words of Lord SummerIsle) 'A Heathen, conceivably, but not I hope, an unenlightened one ...'

Creating botanical beauty

Sometimes projects require a mammoth amount of planning, research and reading. The series I'm currently working on certainly falls into this category. On the surface this is often not evident, but there is always hidden meaning and symbolism behind my work, you just need to look for it. My current big series 'Flora and Fauna' In many ways harks back to some of the work I was doing 5 years ago for my final project at university. I conducted extensive research on The Language of Flowers and the historical use of nature in art symbolism, designing my final collection around the theme of sin and virtue.

For a long time I have wanted to do more botanical illustration, as I am a great lover of nature and all things wild and weird. But for me it can't just be an attractive image I'm creating, there has to be some meat on the bones, and that means symbolism and depth.

After countless hours of pondering and research I decided on a number of themes and phrases to form the basis of the pieces themselves, and began researching flora and fauna which reflect these themes. I already had a shortlist of moths and insects I hoped to work into the series somewhere. So after many hours with my nose in books, looking back over old notes, doodling and utilising my old friend Google I finally began sketching out some compositions. Happy with my progress and the way my ideas were shaping up the next stage was to complete full size line drawings of the compositions, compare them, see how they flow and work together.

Once I was satisfied that the series had the potential to work as a collection of artworks not just a stand alone piece then the really intensive work could begin. Firstly, I transfer my linework to paper, some details and essential parts are noted in pencil, followed by a detailed pen later providing shading depth and the basis for the compositions and finally watercolour, to make the pieces come alive and look more than just a monochrome sketch. Because of the level of detail and accuracy required I decided to complete tests of my colour palette and technique to ensure it was going to successfully achieve what I needed it to. Any mistakes and changes of heart over colour would be visible, so everything has to be decided upon in advance, planning is the key for this series.

As time moves on and the pieces progress I am pleased with how they are shaping up. This type of time consuming layering is hard work but ultimately worth it. As ever, the watercolour layer makes everything come alive and gives a sense of vibrancy (not a word I often use to describe my work) and realism to the pieces. Only time will tell if the series will work together and achieve my dream of a decadent, richly symbolic set of botanical illustrations ...