Tree Climbing for Boys : Down
Posted on January 12, 2011
Tree Climbing for Boys: In
Posted on January 8, 2011
Tree Climbing for Boys 1
Posted on December 28, 2010
Leonardo Da Vinci : Rocky Landscape Studies in Pen & Ink
Posted on March 28, 2010

‘Study of a Tuscan Landscape – Val d’Arno’
1473
Pen & Ink, nib on vellum
Approx 15 x 22 cm
Uffizi Museum

LEONARDO DA VINCI
‘Study of a Ravine in a Rocky Landscape’
C.1486
Pen & Ink, nib on vellum
Approx 22 x 15 cm
Windsor Leoni Volume
I enjoyed reading about them here: http://www.lairweb.org.nz/leonardo/landscape.html
Vasari recorded Leonardo as, “frequently occupied in the preparation of plans to remove mountains or to pierce them with tunnels from plain to plain.”
1996
Ink & Pastel
© adam cope
‘Deux Bicorne – Bis’
Large oil on canvas
look again at this leonardo oil painting of rocks in one of his backgrounds – wow!
Croquis des Familles en Vacances à Sarlat
Posted on July 24, 2009
Pen & Ink
15 x21 cm (approx 6 x 8,2 nches).
© Adam Cope
NFS
Detail – Maclaren Pram, a great British invention.
Sketches of Families on Holiday (in the middle of a crowd in Sarlat)
They are all watching the spectacles.
some pen & inks @ 24 x 32 cm:
Mere et Fille
Pere, Mere et Bébé ( i nearly got slappe dofr this one! enjoyed the irony)
encore
Dessins et Encres de Sarlat par Nuit
Posted on July 23, 2009
dessins (fr) = drawings (en)
encres (fr) = inks(en)
Sarlat is a town near me in south west france where i exhibit
nuit (fr) = night(en)
Night time in the town of Sarlat, on holiday
…. we enter another world. The crowds, all humanity on the pavements, the heat, the spectacles, the sexuality, the darks & the bright pools of electric illuminations. Holiday time. Bel nuit d’été à Sarlat.
The crowds watching a spectacle:
Sketches of a Wedding
Posted on September 29, 2008
pencil’Sur la Vif’ or ‘On the Hoof’
Sketches of a Wedding
A5
ink brush pen
A lovely wedding in the vines. Lots of cameras, so here’s one of yours truly. Note the champagne.
Quatre Carte-Postales de Mon Co-Locataire, l’Hibou
Posted on May 24, 2008
Details & dates to follow in next post. Here’s what I’m putting in, boxed up along with the bilingual explanation notes.
Quatre Carte-Postales de Mon Co-Locataire, l’Hibou (fr) = Fur Post Cards of my Room Mate, the Owl. (en)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
TITRE: Quatre Carte-Postales de mon Co-Locataire, l’Hibou
MEDIA : Véritable sepia (encre des seyches)
DIMENSIONS : quatre carte postales – 10 x 15 cm, encadré dans un seule cadre (environ 40 x 60 cm???)
DATE : 1997
NOTE EXPLICATIF : En 1997, j’ai eu l’opportunité d’être concierge d’un domaine très isolé au milieu de la nature, quelque part dans le Sud Ouest de ‘La France Profonde’. Je pensais que j’étais tout seul comme un naufragé sur une île déserte mais non. Les nuits étaient encore plus bruyantes que les jours! Les grincements, grattements, couinements… l’environnement était vivant avec les bruits d’une faune sauvage. Mais au moment où j’ai commencé à m’habituer aux loirs, souris, capricornes et scarabés… cette nuit là, j’ai entendu un bruit encore plus surprenant. Un soufflement lourd et chaud, tout prés de moi… Il fallait que je trouve la source de ce soufflement & la confronter si nécessaire. Pas de confrontation nécessaire. Là, tout prés, de l’autre côté de la vitre de la fenêtre où j’avais installé mon attirail de dessin, il y avait un hibou, tout jeune & tout petit. C’était incroyable, il restait figé pendant que je le dessinais ‘sur le vif’ (voir HIBOU 1). Cet hiver, pendant les nuits noires comme de l’encre, je l’ai entendu à chaque pas que je faisais. Quelles études et quels parcours (voir HIBOU 2) pour ce jeune hibou avant qu’il puisse prendre son envol? Certaines nuits j’entendais ses plumes qui coupaient l’air & bien entendu, sa chanson mystèrieuse (Voir HIBOU 3). Quleques années plus tard, lors d’un promenade en forêt, j’ai rencontré un autre être, avec un regard qui m’a figé autant que je l’ai figé… (Voir HIBOU 4).
In 1997, I had the opportunity to be the guardian of an estate, which was very isolated in the countryside, somewhere in the South West of ‘La France Profonde.’ I thought that I was all alone, shipwrecked on a desert isllad but no… The nights were even more noisey than the days! The knorings, scratchings, squeakings… the enviroment was alive with the sounds of a savage wildlife. But the moment that I started to get used to the field mice, door mice, deathwatch & stag beetles…. then that night, I heard a noise even more surprising. A heavy, hot breathing, close by me… I had to find the source of this breathing & confront it, if necessary. No confrontation was necessary. There, very close by, on the other side of the window pane where I had set up my drawing kit, was a tiny, small owl. Incredibly, it remained fixed to the spot whilst I drew it from life ( see HIBOU 1). That winter, during the nights black as ink, I heard her with every step I took. What studies & what trails (see HIBOU 2) for this young owl before she could take flight? (see HIBOU 2). On some nights, I heard its feathers cutting the air & of course, her mysterious song (see HIBOU 3). Some years later, whilst walking in a forest, I met another being, which had a look which frooze meas much as I frooze it…. (see HIBOU 4).
Rock Formations – John Ruskin – Prehistoric Shelters in the Dordogne
Posted on March 27, 2008

‘Overhanging Rockface in the Dordogne’
2001 – 2008
Watercolour & Ink.
30 x 40cm (15 x 11 inches).
© The Artist.
a prehistoric shelter…
John Ruskin
John Ruskin (1819–1900) was another artist who was mad about rocks. He was a lake-lander (the Lake District in the UK. I used to walk & watercolour there whilst at Newcastle University :-). He also an in-depth student of geology & amassed a comprehensive collection of rocks & minerals.
If only the Geologists would let me alone, I could do very well, but those dreadful Hammers! I hear the clink of them at the end of every cadence of Bible verses and on the other side, these unhappy, blinking Puseyisms; men trying to do right and losing their very humanity – Ruskin
He paid very great attention to detail, lovingly, as if each ripple & blow hole was significative of ‘The Hand of God’. So much so that he was criticised by an Parisienne asethete for ‘having the eyes of a bird’ (ie he saw only details & not wholes). But map making & exactitude, for me, is an important element of respecting ‘the spirit of the place’. Even the wildest flights of imagination are more convincingly portrayed in painting when yoked with a real & close observation of ‘the facts’.
Look at this great pen & ink from the Ashmolean, Oxford. I’ve not seen this one ‘in the flesh’ (wish that Wiki would note it’s dimensions! decontextualised internet…). A monochrome of great power. At a guess I would say at least two sittings, maybe of about tree hours each. Maybe more. One of the many things I adamire about Ruskin’s painting is that you rarely feel rushed. He would just leave the piece unfinished, incomplete rather than rush or ‘fill-in’.
Study of Gneiss Rock, Glenfinlas, 1853
Pen and ink and wash with Chinese ink on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, England.
Photo credit : wiki commons
Font de Gaume, Dordogne
Posted on February 2, 2008
double spread A5 sketchbook
© The Artist.
Detail :note I’m using a roller ball pen by 2004 & saving the ‘spider-webs’ of nib for the really important bits.
If you follow the ‘crack’ or the stain down you arrive at the level at which there was once an underground river, which formed an underground gallery going back quiet so way through the rock but having deposited a fair bit of soil etc upon it’s retreat. It is now dry.
Follow the crack down & go up and into gallery…
I love that ladder! Not at all like the modern day museum trappings of book shop, postcards & disgruntled ticket salespersons.
Go into the labyrinth to meet your monster…
….. who is the crowning glory of late Prehistoric Cave Art (whoops, sorry we aren’t allowed to call it ‘art’ any more according to some archeologists 😉 It’s some 15 000 years on from the ‘western european creative explosion’ of Chauvet…
…isn’t he just the most finest of beasts!
History of Font de Gaume
Prehistoric people living in the Dordogne Valley first settled in the mouth of Font de Gaume around 25,000 BC. The cave mouth was inhabited at least sporadically for the next several thousand years. However, after the original prehistoric inhabitants left, the cave was forgotten until the nineteenth century when local people again began to visit the cave.
In 1901, Denis Peyrony, a school teacher from Les Eyzies, discovered the paintings inside Font de Gaume. The paintings date from around 17000 BC, during the Magdalénien period. However, many of the cave’s paintings were discovered much later. The cave’s most famous painting, a frieze of five bison was discovered accidentally in 1966 while scientists were cleaning the cave.