Elaine Phipps

As stated previously, I'm not looking to illustrate specific stones or sites - but rather a sense of stones and markers in their environment/lighting. I'm not looking to accurately record an actual landscape per se -  but to try and capture how they make me feel; I'm shaping the forms with colour from the landscape and light

My bluestones are actually blue, lol - I really like the openness and expansiveness of this piece. I think it shows scale without being oppressive.

With this one, I was experimenting with notions of absence.  A lot of standing stone sites are collapsed in some way - or a further exploration of sites indicate post holes for structures that are no longer present. I like this idea of ghost structures and this way of depicting them - I'll certainly come back to this idea.

I'm wondering if this piece is wandering off towards a more 'literal' representation. I really like lichen on stone and the idea of the stone texture becoming more hewn. A lot of stones have shapes worked into them (i.e. cup and ring marks). The colours here are not representative - but I do like the powerful marks.

This one is a bit more abstracted - I love the marks and want to explore this more. The form is monumental but the lines that describe it are dancing and fluid. The shadow of the form isn't cast on the floor - but swings up to frame it on one side.

Love this one - minimal and simple. If I could work on a large scale, this would be perfect. I love the simplicity of the enclosed form and the smoky, random (not really!) accents. I've actually started to develop this kind of approach further and I really like it - I'll put them in another post as this one is getting a bit scroll-y now ...

My monumental series started life as this collaged piece in a new workbook. I watched the winter solstice at Stonehenge and was hugely inspired by the shapes and the scale of the stones there - as well as the changing light. I can see a body of work here to keep me busy for years!

I'm not looking to illustrate specific stones or sites - rather to try and capture solidity of form and shifting light around them. The thing is - how to produce a 'monumental' effect at a small scale?

I think the options at the foot of the page work well to give a sense of solidity - and I like the idea of manipulating light through the narrow spaces between.

The one thing that became quickly apparent is that the silhouette/aperture of the solid form looks better squared-off.  It doesnt work as well with a curved line (see the top of the aperture framed by the scratch lines below).  I changed it to straight edges which squared-off the top of the aperture (second image) - and I think this works better.

I left the scratched lines in, to suggest a more irregular/organic form to the uprights - I really like the contrast - and why not have your cake and eat it too!