I have holidayed regularly at Les Oursinieres in Provence, and had struggled to move beyond souvenir topographical drawings in the light of such obvious picturesque beauty. But in summer 2014 I eschewed topographical description and concentrated on light reflected from the sea at night. This liberated a way of working in the landscape that continues to develop.
Surrounded by the clearest sea Portland is an exposed, white, industrial landscape, where the laying down of the beds of stone that constitute the island is revealed by the widespread quarrying of the raised sea bed, pushed above the surface millions of years ago. Sitting on the pebble beach watching the sea roll in one is witnessing the same process that led to the formation of the island. If one stayed long enough would one witness an accretion of more stone, as shell fragments are deposited? If one had arrived much earlier would some of the existing rock still be in fluid suspension?
My series of watercolour sketchbooks made on Portland are collectively titled Wet Stone Dry Sea, and try to reflect this process of accretion from fluid to solid over time as much as the topography of Portland. Seawater is used to carry the pigment that washes the paper and dries as minute fragments of colour, which are built up while it remains wet enough to work. The struggle to complete the work before it dries mirrors the process of deposition that formed the limestone that constitutes Portland.
Walberswick
When sea has taken the artists strength
he’ll pause and watch the ebbing streams,
for his body has channels that brine with chill.
And when he decides he can stay no more,
he scans the shore for his very own clothes
then wades to shingle that buries his toes;
feels himself cleansed by sensing the water’s
changed his being from what was before
while the spirit trails after, puzzled by awe.
But this is when he’s risen to the shore
and I sit cross-legged to gain enhancement
from him who kneels to view the skyline
and study the swells as they rise and decline;
strokes brushes of colour to flow from the pans
and bleed into shapes on the vellum’s skin;
then hues are released from the sable’s tip
to fill the painting propped on stones.
And what’s in its veins keeps the paper part of
headland and breakers, pebbles and sand.
Clive Boothman
I regularly stayed in the Kuala Lumpur Hilton, where the rooms have floor to ceiling windows. At night I would move the furniture, roll back the carpet, switch off the lights and respond to the view below of a busy road cutting through lush, overheated landscape. By morning I would fold up the drying works, wipe the floor and replace the furniture.
FIELDWORKS
Having moved from the Malvern Hills to Suffolk this series is a response to the winter landscape, and in particular to the large ploughed field of heavy clay immediately behind the house. I decided to look directly at the field surface, in the same way that I have looked at the surface of rivers and seas. I worked out in the field at night, and included some of the clay itself with the watercolour.