OCA drawing 1.1

 For this exercise you will need to work across a number of sheets of paper joined together to form a simple concertina book. The aim is to investigate the potential for chronology, intimacy, sequence or narrative of the concertina book. 

The drawing will serve as a record of the journey you described in your writing produced for Exercise 3. By working across a concertina format of paper, you can explore the temporal nature of your journey and the sequence and order in how things happened. Don’t be afraid to deviate from the exact chronology here, you might want to use your writing as a point of departure in order to produce a sprawling visual narrative, or you may want to omit entire parts of the journey and focus in on particular details at a granular and forensic detail to give them much more time and space than in your original piece of writing.

My biro marks, as they collect together form a frequency.  A humming, like the colours reflecting the wet after the storm.   

These surrounding views are daily nutrition, but there is a ‘knowing’, that behind them lies a vast abyss.  Of nature, elements, mortality and immortality.

The daily journey I take becomes so familiar it’s fluid like water finding it’s way down through the rocks and terrain.  Except when it’s blocked by the elements, heavy snow or ice……rock slides.

I wanted to express the subconscious part of my journey.  My focus is rarely singular, it’s blurred by all the elements of the environment and my fragmented thoughts.  The daily journey is very familiar so there is rarely the element of surprise, more a comfort and acknowledgement of nature and its wonder. Breaking the visual reference into its essence represents my experience and its ethereal nature. I also wanted to make direct quick marks that instantly represented the texture of my focus.

First I made an intuitive drawing mapping out the route as I remember it.  Initially I used a modified palette, but something was lacking.  The subject is always changing.  Some days it’s raw umba and shrouded in greys, others crisp white and cerulean skies.  The sun rises pink and lilac, and sets with orange and ochre.  There is always evergreen, except when it snows.  It’s face changes daily, and more often, hourly.  It was better suited to be liberal and add all the colours like a dance.

My mark making may appear naive and uncomplicated but it was approached with the same tenacity as an academic drawing.  Retaining simplicity takes focus.  The marks are loose but considered. They represent something subtle, shimmering, ethereal.  Like we are retracing the steps of a dream. What you may see is a group of scribbles.  It’s a series of layers, density, direction, depth, activity.  Without the development of the marks there is no representation.  There are no accidents here.  Each section is there because I want it to be, in the way I want it to be. 

I had to work through various materials.  Some inks were too wet.  The one I chose allowed for layering and has a dryer consistency.  It was an ink pad and roller.  Some papers were too absorbent, greedily drinking up the ink and leaving none for the drawing.  I found a shinny surface that was thin enough to sculpt and crease, but strong enough not to disintegrate.

In a previous project I researched Takesada Matsutami.  Specifically his continuous, meditative pencil mark making drawings.  They connected me to the theory of time over a long piece of artwork. This inspired me to create a more organic piece, rather than frame by frame experience.  It’s the eye of the audience that takes the journey over the pages, to sense what it is like to take that walk.

This scroll narrates where I am in my practice.  Ideas forming, experimentation, opening the doors to ideas not considered, or previously avoided.  Feeling an essence of where I am rather than actually knowing precisely where I stand.

List of Images

Cover Image Flockhart, K. (2025) A Daily Journey Scroll. [Biro and ink on paper] In possession of: The author: Volleges.

Fig.1 Flockhart, K. (2025) A Daily Journey Scroll. [Biro and ink on paper] In possession of: The author: Volleges.

Fig.2 Flockhart, K. (2025) A Daily Journey Scroll. [Biro and ink on paper] In possession of: The author: Volleges.

Fig.3 Flockhart, K. (2025) A Daily Journey Scroll: Details. [Biro and ink on paper] In possession of: The author: Volleges.

Fig.4 Flockhart, K. (2025) A Daily Journey Scroll. [Biro and ink on paper] In possession of: The author: Volleges.