Humbrol Enamel Paint

It's been a strange period in the project. The momentum from the drawings has dissipated and other elements have been crowding into my vision, such as the ropes or other responses to my site visit in February. Plus I have been weathering a virus on and off for some weeks so it has all really disrupted my flow which is frustrating. I do always try and stay philosophical though because sometimes these blips in progression are quite useful (in hindsight). It can allow one to re-focus, re-analyse the ideas and work. I do find myself getting rather desperate during these periods and despondency creeps in. Every action feels so exposed as you think 'is this it, am I on the right track now or going into cul-de-sac?'. No matter if I go through this cycle a thousand or more times, I panic, then I relax and its all ok until the next big wave. During this period of flux, I had an urge to go to a model shop in Hereford and buy some Humbrol Enamel paints. I've always liked these pots of paint especially the drab colours which they usually come in. My brother used to make airfix kits and there was always the painting of these models with the appropriate shade of Humbrol. It was an activity that I was definitely excluded from, being the in the 1970's. So I probably harboured ambitions to use Humbrol paints for sometime. It still feels like a very masculine environment in the model shop. I like the size of these Liliputian paint pots. Obviously Humbrol are making good money out of these but I love the fact that the paint is doled out in small amounts. I started to use the paint on blanking out areas of hand drawn maps on tracing paper that I was working on. I like the way the paint sits on the surface of the paper, all glossy and opaque. I then looked at the details and symbols on the OS maps which indicate things like caravan sites or youth hostels. I have been taking some of these symbols and hand drawing them onto graph paper in multiples. Using the Humbrol enamel paints, I have hand coloured these symbols, so i ended up with 168 camping sites or 224 beacons. I also looked at the details often drawn on coastal maps such as shingle or mudbanks and then translated these onto the graph paper. I enjoy the repetition of drawing these symbols yet they are never exactly the same and you can see each symbol has a different quality. Taking these drawings on graph paper, I began playing with light and shining a strong light source through the paper which makes the graphic qualities of the paper, luminous. Where the Humbrol paint sits, it remains opaque and solid, the symbols almost floating. I started to layer these drawings up so I had one with Beacons on in an orange colour behind another with grey campsites. I inevitably seem to come back to wanting to find the latent in my work. It's always the unexpected in my work which fascinates me.