Signals (i)

Signals (i) - John Swogger, 2010 (acrylic on board, 32x32cm)

Here’s my first more-or-less completed work for “The Way”. It’s a study, really, not a finished piece: a study of some of the various elements I’ve been working with from my sketches and photographs of the past week or so. There’s the signal post finial to the left, and the mound and holed-stone from the Wilfred Owen park in the centre, and tracks and a simplified set of signals to the right.

I’m quite pleased with the composition – but my drawing of the signal post finial might have been a bit rushed: it’s not actually square with the rest of the elements, and the left side has ended up being a bit compressed. I also didn’t get a chance to draw it from life – the sketch I posted yesterday was done from memory, and I don’t think the point on the finial top is quite right (also, it’s not white enough, but I need to adjust the composition slightly so that it doesn’t get lost in the brighter blue of the sky in the background). The colours aren’t entirely true in this photograph, either – the red’s a little washed out.

But it’s a good place to start, I think. I’m looking forward to working on a few more studies over the next few weeks. I want to work on the area from the signal box down towards the bridge at Middleton Road: I think that’s got a lot of visual possibilities. I also want to work more with the signal finials. I want to do some more sketches in the transport museum of the ones they’ve got there, and I also want to bring in the engine cab drawings I did as well. I’d like to think that I’d have a lot of this stuff resolved by late November and actually start producing some larger paintings by then.