Original charcoal drawing

Image area (approx): 64cm (wide) x 43(high) - Paper size: 75cm (wide) x 55 (high)

Paper: High quality art paper: 300gsm Heritage Rag - white unbuffered

There are about 100 hours of work in this study. It's a view I reconstructed a little while also changing the direction of the tide, compared to how it was at the time - in return, I was rewarded with an aching back from leaning too much while I worked on it.

The actual drawing is a bit lighter than it appears in these pictures - it's difficult to capture the balance of light and detail with the camera!

Some notes on this production, in case you're interested...

The most challenging part of a project like this is the process of working out how to depict the different tones and textures so that they represent the subject in a convincing way. I don't go for an accurate depiction - what I want to achieve is a convincing impression - it's obvious that it's a drawing - I don't want to make it a work of photo-realism - so the trick is to allow the viewer to enter the scene while conscious of the way it was created, without breaking the spell with a misplaced or awkward line, or a poorly realised texture or tone.

At the same time, the medium only gives so much before it clams up and refuses to be involved in the process - there comes a point when you can't remove the charcoal anymore, when it sits on the paper and refuses to budge. You have to be very respectful of it - very gentle, most of the time.

I use charcoal dust in these drawings... and that's a whole other thing. I 'paint' the initial shapes and forms with the dry dust, then I use a putty rubber to dab away the areas I want to make lighter. This creates the background tone before any work with the charcoal pencil begins. But right up to the end of the drawing, the dust layer is attached very lightly to the paper - almost anything - the lightest touch with a sleeve - a pencil accidentally rolling across the drawing(!) will mark or remove the dust layer. So when I'm working on a drawing as large as this, I have to be careful all the time to avoid damaging it in a way that can't be repaired with over-drawing. When the drawing is finished, a spray of fixative holds everything in place. The hardest part of this work was creating the water effect - which was almost entirely achieved with dust and eraser.

This work is part of my 'Intimate Geography' drawing series.