A lifelong love of place
A lifelong love of place
Creating atmosphere and enhancing the feeling of a drawing by adding 'weather'
I think I am guilty of falling in love with places almost as easily as I fall in love with people. I love places. And, for as long as I can remember I have always wanted to find new places to love. Since I turned 18 I have lived in 22 houses (and I’m now 43 so that is a lot of moving homes) in many different countries. I have mostly moved because I’ve wanted to, because I want to find the magic in another place. Wanted to learn about how people live there. I think it is perhaps something of an addiction.
While I usually find many things to love about the places I’ve lived, I began to realise realise that ‘weather’ was a key characteristic of all the places I fell most deeply in love with. My favourite days when I lived in Kenya were in the rainy season when the sky would turn almost black in the middle of the afternoon and rain would pour from the sky in bucketloads and roads quickly became impassible. This was the same in Kathmandu - my heart would skip a beat when the light got low as the storms rolled in and the light would make everything glow.
The places that I have most deeply fallen in love with, have been ones that froze solid or got covered in snow - and my favourite moments in cold places in the world I think are in Estonia, Japan, Mongolia, China and the Nepali Himalayas.
I’m not sure exactly what makes me fall in love with the cold places the most. But I think there are a couple of things. Firstly, they are visually spectacular. When it snows, everything you see gets simplified. Somehow the white sky and white ground seem to make everything quite flat. Simple shapes and lines seem to replace the complicated messy layers that were there before. Colour gets muted. Although if there is anything particularly bright it stands out even more (swans beaks above). It is almost as though the world turns itself into a limited colour palette.
When the colours get limited and the shapes and lines simplified, to my crazy mind the stories somehow get enhanced. Moments, like the one above, with that lone woman crossing the snowy park, somehow become quite momentous. They catch my eye more easily and the world feels full of stories.
The second reason I think I love cold places is less what they look like, and more how they make me feel. I think my favourite thing in the world is to go out into a frozen world, where the wind freezes my cheeks and my eyes water and there is no hiding from that feeling of being truly ‘alive’. And then, going back inside, into somewhere warm, dry and cosy.
Interestingly, I haven’t yet found a way in my drawing to really capture the first part of my love of cold places - what they look like and the simplification of the world into shapes and lines - I think I love to use photography for that. But, the second, trying to capture the ‘feeling’ I have in places that are cold is something I think I have got better at.
When I started drawing again it was a long time before I thought to add ‘weather’ to my drawings. And as soon as I did they felt more ‘me’. I suddenly found they had a spirit and a feeling in them that I felt far more pleased with. They started to capture the feelings I have in these cold places that I love. Often these do not look like the places I have been, or perhaps they are invented locations created because I wish I was somewhere with that beautiful cosy glow. Sometimes I add snow. Sometimes rain. Sometimes just dark stormy skies.
I was surprised how much of a difference thinking about the weather made to my work. Surprised how much more I enjoyed the resulting images and how much more easily it helped to capture a sense of place - the magic that I felt when I was somewhere, or when I imagine I am.
I absolutely loved this post, just add weather… to be honest I hardly read many blog type posts but this one drew me in completely. Loved it thank you.
Thank you for this brilliant post . As we are just moving into almost Spring in Canada it is strangely typical that in general we can’t get enamoured with our winters - even though they are inevitable ! ( Skiers and hockey players aside of course ! ) you have encouraged me to see and experience snow and cold weather differently ! In the beginning I tend to be charmed by a soft fluffy snowfall - yet by March it feels like enough .. when I think of it visually as a “limited palette” this somehow changes things for me. Also the indoor coziness we seek . Thank you for artistically reframing cold :-)