Layers and Layers – Recording Observations 1

When working on the recently posted StillWalks video, “Breakers Walk”, I was asked not to do a recce walk. The photos below, of the cliffs and rock layers of the South Wales coast, are perhaps some I might have taken had I done that recce.

I took these shots on the the recent “Walk and Draw” day described in the previous post in which I posed some questions including “what are the disadvantages of not recording observations?

I am sure that if I had done that recce, the StillWalks video I produced would have been different – whether or not it would have been better is another question entirely. The disadvantage of not having done a recce was that there was more time required in post-production than there would have been. This was due to not having some of the photos I might have taken and, more importantly, not having as much sound recorded – more thorough field recording would have been helpful when laying this in with the image sequence.

Monknash cliffs

rock strata

rock strata

Walking and Drawing – Thoughts and Observations

Following the production walk for the “Breakers Walk” StillWalks video (see yesterday’s post), I recently spent a day with three of the other artists involved in the research project “Walk and Draw for Health and Wellbeing”. The project, led by Cathy Treadaway from CARIAD, involved us on this occasion, all going for a walk through Cwm Nash woods down to the seashore and the cliffs on the South Wales coast and spending some time drawing.

I took a small sketchbook and an iPad. I have been working with drawing and iPads on the recent Josef Herman Art Foundation Schools Award project for 2014 and wanted to continue with my assessment of the iPad as another instrument for drawing. I have not reached a clear conclusion about this medium yet, other than to say it is quite different to other methods of recording observation.

The one thing the iPad has in common with all visual recording methods is that you still have to look. You can, of course, use the iPad camera to take a photo and then use that image to “trace” aspects of the subject but, to my mind, with that approach you lose the advantages gained in looking . . . or do you? After all,  observation has to be used in order to decide on the photograph to be taken and that is an essential element of StillWalks.

What are the advantages of visually recording observations? What are advantages of the different methods of visually recording observations? And what are the disadvantages of not recording observations?

More thoughts on this to come . . . 

Down on the beach

Rocky shore

breakers