Working Process

Overview

My artistic journey started when I was a child in the early 1970s "I remember wanting to be an artist – picking up a pen and drawing the world around me." As well as ideas from my imagination. subjects from these very early days included castles, people, flowers, and architecture and some of these subjects have stayed with me to this day.

Above and below images: Two of my drawings of the Humber Bridge, (UK),  I created when I was 5 years old.

Exhibiting and winning competitions started at a very young age when I won BBC Blue Peter badge dinosaur competition in 1979.

My works reflect ideas from East and Western sources and perspectives such as Anglo-European Heritage, Transatlantic connections, Asian landscapes, gothic revival architecture, urbaneness, satire, illustration and narrative. My work incorporates and explores these identities through direct and indirect observation creating complex and seemingly agoraphobic, perspective spaces, a labyrinth, which reflects the built and natural environments and echoes the monumental histories that make up our collective European and International identities, our heritage.

Travel 

As well as working from my imagination I enjoy working from direct observation. through visiting remote regions of the World, capturing the many magical places. and landscapes I have visited these have included the Indian and Nepal Himalayas, the Georgian Caucuses, Peruvian Andes, the French, Swiss, Austrian and Italian Alps, many countries and places in Europe and world-wide including the USA, India, Nepal, China, Syria, Georgia, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Jordan and Peru. You can view a selection of the sketches produce on these trips by visiting 'My Art works then the  Sketchbooks' page on this site. 

Above image: is me painting in Switzerland on the Tour Du Mont Blanc Circuit 

Above image: is me painting at Saint Moritz in Switzerland  

My Printmaking Process. 

As well as my  painting and drawing I also create very complex original prints based on cultural heritage and visual histories, using the etching process which is a process where by an image is drawn with a needle point onto a pre-prepared wax ground on a copper or zinc plate,

The drawn image on the plate ground is then submerged in a tray of acid and the exposed, drawn lines are etched into the plate surface, (the wax ground that is not exposed resists the acid).

The plate is then inked by scraping etching ink into the bitten lines and then cleaned back to leave only the etched ink in the etched lines practice. When developing a new piece of work my printmaking day in the studio starts with planning and research, reviewing existing ideas as well as exploring other concepts, these are often based on things that have caught my interest or are topical now or were in the past. Ideas used are then extensively researched.

Following research another key element of my printmaking day is producing sketches of ideas, then developing more refined dip pen and ink drawing of my final idea. This drawing is then reversed ready to draw onto a copy plate.

As I work, I get even more inspired allowing the etching processes to evolve whilst at the same time developing an overall more controlled approach through how to capture and create beautiful qualities of drawn and bitten lines. It is the combination of the experimental with the controlled that suits my drawing processes, research ideas, working methods and imaginative process. In my studio work I try to get to the core of the materiality of the drawn and printed processes I am working on.

As I work, I am also constantly thinking too, not only of what I am working on and achieving at that moment in time but also in the next steps of what this work may also do to help me to develop and achieve even more ambitious ideas and subjects that then also feed into my strong imagination and print and other works. I have always tried different approaches and experimented with ideas and processes.

Above and below images: Shows part of one of my printed etchings just after it as been run through the etching press. 

Above image: Shows details of the various working stages of my etching ‘Chrysler/ Empire’. (Showing the different states and reworking of them).

Read more about my work by visiting the link below to an online interview I did with the New English Art Club

https://www.newenglishartclub.co.uk/news/61-interview-with-neil-pittaway/