At last! Having had an enforced break from painting for a few weeks since before Christmas (hope you all had a good one!), my thoughts are turning once again to my most recent source of inspiration – Dungeness. Read my previous post ‘Art at the edge: Dungeness’ for more on how a recent holiday led to my fascination with this unique and strange place.

In this post I’m sharing a few recent pages from my current workbook, which I’ve produced since the small paintings in the last post, and I’m working through ideas for a series of mixed media pieces, inspired by my experience of Dungeness, hopefully eventually leading to large canvases. I’m hoping to get back in my studio soon to carry on developing these.

You can perhaps see from these experimental pieces that, as with my other work series, I’m exploring the shapes, linear motifs and colours that the place suggests to me, rather than trying to achieve anything recognisable, so I’m using a lime green for instance, to evoke the weird evening light (not grass!) and to suggest the latent power of the nuclear power station squatting on the edge of the area. I’ve previously used very little green in my artwork, but it feels right here somehow. Linear marks recall power lines, pylons, remains of tracks in the shingle, fences, telegraph poles etc.

In building up the workbook pages shown here, I used torn up pieces of scrap monoprints I’d produced with a gelli plate, while loosening up and playing with colours, textures and ideas. Then layered over with gouache, acrylic, homemade stencils and collage elements till I got the effect I wanted. I keep a box of scrap prints, textured card and assorted materials close to hand for when I’m messing about in the workbook, either incorporating them or using them for impressing or printing shapes. Sometimes it pays to be a hoarder!