So many of my paintings and collages start life as a humble thumbnail sketch, usually no bigger than an inch or two across and each taking less than half a minute to do. Unencumbered by pressure to do or be anything much, using the cheapest materials, they sometimes achieve an energy and fizz that can so easily get lost in the bigger finished works. On several occasions I’ve finished a painting, then looked back at the original thumbnail and prefer the tiny scrawl of a drawing in biro to the finished piece I’ve laboured over for two weeks.
They’re great for getting through a dreary day at work as well, and you can always tell how dull a meeting was by the quantity of thumbnails, doodles and scribbles that decorate my copy of the agenda and papers by the end of the meeting.
Here are a few from my sketchbooks and other notebooks over the last year; some were the starting points for paintings that were developed and appeared in posts on Hedgecrows, some prompted further work that hasn’t been fully developed yet, and some have not gone anywhere – yet!

Some thumbnails from my trip to Ibiza:

Some green men sort of thing sketches:

These little drawings were inspired by some of the architecture I’ve been looking at in Berlin:

These thumbnails were done when I was developing ideas for folding sketchbooks:

From a visit to St. Govan’s chapel in Pembrokeshire:

And a few other miscellaneous thumbnails:

There are few things that make me go a bit funny – in a good way – like an artist’s book or fine bookbinding. If you’re the same I recommend the exhibition currently showing at the St Bride Foundation called InsideOUT if you haven’t already been. The exhibition by the Designer Bookbinders brings together 65 contemporary bindings or private press books and it’s absolutely ravishing. It was very difficult to photograph as the books were displayed in glass cases so there was quite a bit of reflection but these pics should give a flavour of the show. Here’s the main display:

Close up of the Shanty Bay Press books, with binding from bottom by Donald Glaister, Lester Capon and Julian Thomas:

The Old Stile Press, the most difficult to photograph unfortunately, the bindings are stunning, details here of bindings, from the bottom, by Paul C Delrue,Scott Kellar, and at the top, left to right, Dominic Riley and David Sellars:

Detail of Christopher Shaw’s binding with palladium tooling of Danger and Destiny by David Blamires, illustrated by Clifford Harper, printed by the Incline Press:

Other displays:

I saw the exhibition with my friend Maggie Ruddy, who has recently, among other things, sculpted a life-size hippo for the Wimbledon tennis championship, you can see it here on Maggie’s lovely blog. There’s also a very nice catalogue of the exhibition available from The St. Bride Foundation.

After InsideOut we wandered down the road for a drink at The Black Friar, the wonderful pub on Queen Victoria Street with a pretty much intact arts and craft (did William Morris & Co. design it?) interior. Here are a couple of pics, it really is a gem.

We finished the afternoon in the West End with a visit to Cornelissen’s art shop on Great Russell Street. What a wonderful place, I’m glad to see it was very busy, the experience of shopping, or just browsing here is so, so much nicer than some of the other warehouse style shops that have sprung up in town over recent years, it’s my new favourite art shop in London.

Crow Tower

I got the coloured pencils out this morning – I’ve hardly used these before and I wanted to give them a try after seeing what spectacular results my friend Clive Hicks-Jenkins had been getting with them. In fact I bought a coloured pencil study he had done for the book cover design he did for Marly Youman’s new novel Glimmerglass I loved it so much. 

Dragon of Many Colours by Clive Hicks-Jenkins, 2013

Having had a go this morning, though, i’m going to have to stick with it if i’m going to get what i want out of them, I found it tricky not to get bogged down in representational detail, but i’ll persevere.

I’m still very much in thrall to the brick expressionist architecture I’ve written about recently so this image uses some elements I’ve seen in buildings in Berlin and also uses a more or less expressionist colour palette, albeit a hot one, but it goes with this weather ath the moment!

I’ve put up a few posts on here in recent months about the Puppet Challenge over on my friend Clive Hicks-Jenkins’ brilliant blog the Artlog. For the last few years Clive has occasionally hosted an open on-line exhibition on his blog, setting out a brief for contributors and showing the results in a series of posts on the Artlog.

This year the exhibition took the form of the Puppet Challenge, an idea that began after a conversations between Clive and artist friend Peter Slight. The challenge was to make a puppet, any kind of puppet, based on the theme of mythology and folklore. You can read Clive’s introduction to the project here.

Well, the deadline for contributions was the end of June this year and the challenge has generated a fantastic response, both in quality and numbers. The first results have started appearing on the Artlog and I’ve been remiss in not putting up this post with the links last week when the exhibition started. So, the first finished puppets can be seen here, and then browse the successive posts to see the contributors who have been shown on the Artlog so far.

The artists who have appeared over the last few days have produced work that I find nothing short of staggeringly good; beautiful, moving, disturbing and imaginative. For many people involved (me included) , this was the first time they had attempted to make a puppet, but the results are so accomplished you’d never guess that was the case.

Here’s a picture of the little rod puppet woodwose I made myself for the challenge, and i’m deeply humbled to be in the company of the other contributors who have made such beautiful work. Get stuck in to the Puppet Challenge posts on the Artlog, I guarantee a rewarding browse!

The woodwose

Das blaue Haus

I made this little collage recently without really thinking too much about it, the main house shape was lying among a pile of scraps on the floor and it suggested itself to me as a vaguely expressionist kind of building.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Germany over recent years and I came across a style of architecture there that fascinated me and which I’d not seen before in the UK. Loosely termed ‘expressionist’ architecture, the movement developed in Europe from around 1910 to 1930 and was particularly dominant in Germany during that period. Some of the buildings look very different although they are grouped together under the same ‘expressionist’ heading. For example this fantastic thing, called the Einstein Tower in Potsdam, just outside Berlin, designed by Erich Mendelsohn and completed in 1922 is all smooth curves and organic shapes:

But a great deal of architecture labelled as ‘expressionist’ is completely different, built of red brick, with spiky shapes, sharp edges and a darker, rather Gothic look. Here are a few pictures I’ve taken in Berlin over the last couple of years (although there are particularly fine examples in Hamburg too):

Entrance porch, Church at Hohenzollerndammplatz, Berlin, designed by Ossip Klarwein and Fritz Höger, completed 1933

Ullsteinhaus print house, Berlin, designed by Eugen Schmohl. completed 1927

Building in Tempelhof district,  Berlin, haven’t been able to find out who this is by yet I’m afraid

I find this kind of thing so much more exciting and satisfying than the cool rationalism of the international modernist style, although some of the early building in this mode are also very lovely. I’m also a big fan of expressionist film and paintings from the same era, so I guess it figures that i’m also a sucker for these strange and beautiful buildings.