Goodness knows what my neighbour thought I was doing, in the garden, wearing a mask, carrying three small bottles of powder, a jar of liquid and an egg…
But I had an experiment to do, making brick and stone watercolours and egg tempera to try out in the Tower Gallery residency studio.
This project isn’t entirely a thing of making. There has been much online research and archive foraging for my project about the building itself, the 1920s Memorial Community Church in Plaistow, East London (about which, more in my talk during Open House, booking from mid-August). But it is turning out to be unexpectedly multisensory.
In week 3, I’ve felt the difference between painting with my slightly gritty (but gloriously vivid) watercolours and the flow and sheen of the egg tempera. As I’ve folded and placed lining paper over stairs and under shadows, I’ve noticed the hard and soft light of near railings and far steelwork and how books have become part of the window shadow as I read the building. As I’ve made rubbings, the leaded windows and decorative railings have shown me how much texture there is in detail I have sketched in line. And drawing with Portland stone on sandpaper, the sound effect was quite something (you can find it over on Instagram, in my story highlights).
And what about week 4? Well, I’ll be using one of the big sketchbooks I’ve made to take a closer look at some lettering – and I'm learning that the building has its own stories to tell me.
