Rain Shadows

Plenty of weather recordings this week. Patchy rain meant that some drawings were dotted with light raindrops while others were subject to intermittent deluges that formed dark, inky washes on the soaked brown card.

Polyptych

As a kid, I had a neighbor that hung a copy of The Pioneer by Frederick McCubbin in her living room. When we'd visit, I would sneak into the room to steal chewing gum, but I would often pause to consider the way each painted panel could be read both individually, and as a cohesive narrative overall - it was like watching TV, I thought.

Mapped on the inside of a collapsed medicine box, black and blue inks well in the cardboard joints that separate each section like a polyptych. Soaked with rain and ink, each wing can be read as a single, self-contained canvas, or as a united narrative documenting the trajectory of the day's weather behaviour. This is no McCubbin, but the properties of the canvas unites and divides, and simple folds become fixed pauses or foundations on which the act of mark-making relies.

Snow Drawing

An icy mass of Antarctic air made Canberra today, causing high winds, rain and snow. Snow flurries in Canberran suburbs are unusual and I was keen to record the conditions. Steered by the cold front, the winds drove the drawing medium frenetically, as rain and thin flakes of snow soaked into the paper.