I went to this Gallery in the High Street in Canterbury
because their Artist in Residence for November is Roy Eastland. I first saw and liked his work at the Jerwood
Drawing Prize exhibition. He is an
artist who draws using the Silverpoint technique. This produces a very lovely soft image, almost
misty in appearance. It is achieved by first
priming the surface with gesso, Chinese white watercolour, or acrylic
white. The image is then scratched and
rubbed onto the surface using a pointed piece of silver. A chemical reaction takes place between the
metal and the primer, resulting in an image that will gradually become darker
over time. This can also be done using
gold or copper.
Roy Eastland’s moving and delicate piece at the Jerwood
was called “They looked like silver birds, the sun was shining on them...”
He describes them thus..."Each page records details of one of the victims of the German 'Gotha' bombing raid on Folkestone on 25th May 1917. Some pages include portrait drawings but some, where there are no images to work from, have only the victim's name, age and some personal details and their injuries and cause of death."
You can see his work on his Blog page: http://royeastland.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/they-looked-like-silver-birds-the-sun-was-shining-on-them/
I was inspired to try experimenting with silverpoint on
seeing this, and here’s my first effort as one of my pieces for a Life Drawing
homework, “Still Life with Objects that are important to me.” It is hard to reproduce the subtlety of silverpoint
in a photograph.
Unfortunately, I didn’t see any of Roy Eastland’s work on
display at the Beaney. I found the
building to be a buzzy place, very higgledy piggledy, with a mixture of old
stuffed animals and rooms with artworks from different periods.
I found it quite hard to take in, as there seemed no
logic to the arrangement. An artist
called Neil Kelly was exhibiting in the “Front Room. I didn’t like his work, as I found it kitsch
and unfunny, but was interested in the materials he used such as enamel on
ceramic. The Garden Room contained
paintings of cattle, which didn’t interest me at all. All in all, I found it a disappointing experience.
