so… the fourth piece in the series is again inspired by a brief glimpse of something while i was out running earlier this year. i looked up, saw a bird in the bare branches of a tree and thought – that’s my next picture. maybe it wasn’t my ‘next’ one, but i had a few images planned for this series at that time, and the image has stuck with me all year.
the bird was originally supposed to be a magpie – because it was the specific bird in the tree at the time and i liked the idea of drawing one with it’s black and white feathers. without any visual reference to begin the image, i started to hunt magpies with my camera with very little luck (where i now live i see them all of the time!). it then occurred to me that the inspiration for this work is rooted in the place i was running, and it suddenly became obvious that the bird should be another type – a crow. i hardly ever saw magpies around there – it was always crows and they tended to congregate in one place quite frequently (by the small bridge over the rea near the bottom of hazelwell lane – for the stirchley locals reading this).
i intend to exhibit these pieces as part of a group exhibition i’m involved in next month – more to come on that soon…
Pingback: seed heads | chris cowdrill's blog