Hodmire Lane – Google’s Return

While working on several small Google StreetView sketches that I’ve currently put to one side, I’ve been looking at a pair of A1 acrylic monochrome sketches of bushes in Hodmire Lane made over the winter, thinking about making some larger paintings, possibly towards creating a new suite of works all based on StreetView images of the same lane. To be honest I’d been a bit frustrated by concentrating on small scale work for too long and stretched up some large pieces of paper to play with – I was keen to let rip.

I revisited the road on StreetView, and it seems that Google have too – the previous photos of late autumn or winter are now full of lush vegetation. So over a couple of days or so I collected several iPad screen shots while thinking about how to tackle them. At the same time a friend questioned my plan (to start by chucking a load of watercolour around) and I began to question it myself – these new images were very complex and technically would be pretty demanding – I needed to both get to know these new images and think through the approach I’d have to make: just chucking the paint on there probably wouldn’t quite do it.

I did start drawing out the basic structure on the largest sheet (about five feet across) but the day-light deteriorated (it’s been very cloudy) so I spent a couple of days drawing simple monochromes on my phone with the StreetView images on my iPad on my lap – sadly my iMac died over a year ago and I haven’t yet raised the cash to replace it. I think these sketches are beginning to help me think through what I might do and get to know the source images a little better. Mobile phone drawings are small scale, but at least I don’t have to wait for layers of paint to dry!

I think I’ve made a start.