Robin Corfield

Hello everyone,

I have been kindly invited to write about 1000 words for this piece. My normal correspondence nowadays is a few words of text , so here goes!

I went to Norwich School of Art to study painting in the 1970’s. What a fabulous city Norwich is. The River Wensum winding its way around the Fine Art studios of what was then Norwich School of Art. I visited the Castle Museum on the hill often to study the Norwich School of Painters especially copying the John Sell Cotman watercolours.

There was such an emphasis, a fashion at the art school, which embraced the wonderful American abstract artists. However I am very English and i loved small etchings, little jewels, as well as some big abstract art that began to evolve during the seventies and thereafter. But i have always been conscious of being old fashioned . Not in a stuck in the mud way, but just through loving those older English French and Dutch landscape paintings. John Constable is the works! As much as the beautiful colour field paintings of Mark Rothko.

In a nutshell i have always loved the English Pastoral tradition... Calvert, Samuel Palmer, Griggs, Sutherland. I was influenced too by the Barbizon school in France and George Seurat’s beautiful tonal drawings. The list could go on...

The truth is if i could afford them i would have a Harold Gilman painting at home, in pride of place next to Patrick Heron, plus etchings by Palmer, and the best of Robin Tanner.

Klee, Gillian Ayres, Alfred Sisley, Ben Nicholson, Ivon Hitchens, Van Gogh etc; wouldn’t it be wonderful! I get so excited thinking about the possibilities. I’d have no trouble being a millionaire. One room would be hung with Fender electric guitars.

Original art is a bit of a luxury isn’t it?

I met the etcher Robin Tanner back in the 1980’s and he was a huge influence on me. As a man, as an artist. What a great guy he was. Such a sweet nature, with a wonderful eye, and compassionate mind. I have lots of letters from him.

Up to that point i had never met anyone who had the same passion for the sort of every day natural world that i did. What i mean is being just as fascinated by a bed of nettles as a flowering garden and having this urge that i had to draw it to do something about it! It couldn’t just exist! I had to get into it and provide evidence that i’d seen it!

All the charcoal drawings you see of mine are up to 30/ 50cms x 24/ 40cms. They are done using Derwent Dark charcoal

pencils onto 140lb NOT Saunders stretched watercolour paper. I use a couple of dentists tools to burnish parts of the work, a stick of paper to rub the charcoal, and an electric and normal rubber.

The paper is tough so i can attack it without it tearing or diminishing its quality. It has a texture to it except where i have burnished it smooth.

I generally stand at an easel by the French doors to the garden, so i can go for a breather away from the charcoal, and so i’m next to my beloved garden to revive me.

I feel the charcoal drawings should work atmospherically from a distance but also when you get up close you can see the details, just like those great etchings.,. just like the landscape itself.

I usually work from a drawing that i have done. This drawing is often very small, envelope size or smaller, and in pencil or other media like conte. This development is often quite detailed. Pretty much always tonal.

Once i’ve got this, then the charcoal drawing comes from my imagination; my visual memory.

I have done thousands of small drawings outside over the years using pocket sketch books. This is of course is where all the looking and the work goes on. Some of these pages are a few incomprehensible squiggles and some quite polished drawings. I flip through these sketchbooks and find pages which inspire me to produce something bigger. I’ve included one or two pages to show you.

I often think of those wonderful abstract artists like Patrick Heron, Ben Nicholson and the Bauhaus artists when i consider the compositions. I am thinking in large shapes and tones of shapes. I also love Arthur Dow and his exquisite simplicity when dealing with composition.

I try to do the charcoal drawings quite fast and not over think them whilst i am doing them, because i have to rely on previous knowledge to let it flow, and for things to become second nature. The work has to have a life of its own and it is important to me to let my subconscious work for me. If you think too much about it then it becomes restricted. Some of the best things i have done have been like watching my hand do the work, ...but not all!

I suppose its no different to any other activity. If you thought about every move while you were driving, it would impair you. Things do become automatic and that’s natural. I wouldn’t say i am relaxed when i’m drawing but i try to enjoy the process.

Anyway i have made prints of my charcoal drawings, not etchings, but digitally scanned prints, and they’ve come out pretty well. So anyone can have as many as they want at a reasonable price. Good prints have made it affordable.

These sorts of prints are fabulous and they are on really nice German etching paper which is similar to watercolour paper and acid free.

I have an interest in the natural world. I love watching birds. I’m interested in the ecology of the planet. It seems so important nowadays that we are aware of the damage we are doing to the earth. So many people are now becoming more conscious of its fragility. I suppose it has given me more of a justification to draw trees! Its sort of become more relevant as conservation has become more of a topic.

I say justification because sometimes doing art has seemed such a selfish activity. I don’t think it is, but it can be solitary.

Anyway thankyou for reading this, i’ve reached the end and its time for a quick cuppa. Robin Corfield.