Underneath The Arches (Preliminary Sketches) and a rewritten poem.

Herewith, a selection of sketches made in January for a body of work 'Underneath The Arches', to accompany a poem originally titled 'And Then I awoke #1 (My Dream) that as first begun in 1980, rewritten in 1990, rewritten in 2007 and has been revisited and rewritten again (for the last time), during this odd year of 'Lock Down' otherwise known as 2020. The poem was first published under the title above in my book, And Then I Awoke - Selected Poems 1979 - 2014 IBSN 9 780646 925257.

The very fist water colour sketch for this series can be seen below the sketches here and on the painting page of this website. As is often the case with my slow brain, the seeds of an idea were there to be seen in that first watercolour but not considered as a viable subject matter to pursue. With some time on my hands in social isolation (and given the luxury of spending much more time in my new studio), I have reworked the poem and developed the related artworks to go with it. I will not be publishing the poem just yet as I want the finished product to be developed fully so that images and words fuse as seamlessly as possible to make one artwork.

The title page, developed themes and drawings see here are far from finished, but the sketches here show the direction in which I am headed. Below the sketches is the an image of the original watercolour 'Underneath The Arches' painting that was the start of this body of work.