Materials of Place. Oak Gall Ink - Ink of Poets and Kings.

This project runs alongside my 'Night Watch' drawing and photography project. It is about exploring drawing through making and using oak gall ink as much as about the place and the experience of, where they were found. It is a continuation of the woodland project, now in it's 6th year. An exhibition of some of the work done over a five year period was titled 'The Intimacy Of Liminal Spaces' and was shown at Belgrave St. Ives, in 2016. I make the ink with oak galls gathered from a woodland in west Wales. This very expensive indelible black ink can be bought - nick-named 'ink of poets and kings', but the process from start to finish is important to the work. At the very least because I can control and play with the viscosity and texture of the material. This is work in progress - I am playing with the medium on different supports - paper, canvas and gesso panel. I also intend to trial the juxtaposition of these drawings in diptychs with painting and/or photography. For the moment, this work is called 'Treasure In Silence' or 'Treasure In Stillness. I work on titles and words simultaneously when making the work.