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Using my fingers to 'thumb' in some of the textures on my Odda's Chapel painting.
"The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will contain
With ease, and you beside."
– Emily Dickinson 1862.
Behind The Cotton Wool
And so, in a café in Howden, through the portal of the final page of my little black sketchbook, I begin to see the world as it truly is.
Sitting there, half-hidden behind a menu holder, sketching two people chatting, I feel a bit like Arthur Dent from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, when it dawns on him that it’s not humans, but mice, who are really in charge of the world. But more of that later.
My sketchbooks aren’t my first attempt at understanding who I am, or how I fit into all of this. Photography has long been helping me on that journey. I think of my lens as a divining rod, guiding me to places and moments that enlighten and inform. But sketching has added another layer, fine-tuning my perception of the world around me.
I find working on these little sketched vignettes during my travels remarkably nourishing adding a level of immersive intimacy with place that is hard to achieve with any other medium. When I sketch in a new location, it feels as though I’m creating a sacred space. Sometimes I feel like a filter, with light passing through me onto the paper, much like water through shale.
I’m still working out the relationship between my photographer’s eye and my artist’s eye.
Time will tell, but I can already feel that my journey through light and composition is influencing my sketches, and, in turn, my photography is beginning to take on a more lyrical quality.
Hockney and Hokusai have already shaped my perception of the world through the camera, and I feel both mediums are slowly merging into one. My sketches are emotional counterweights to my photography.
One side effect of being a photographer is a constant watchfulness that brings about a deeper correspondence with the inherent order of things which inevitably finds its way into my work. There’s a trace of it already in my art—shapes, lines, and Fibonacci patterns subtly filter into the scenes, creating recurring forms and perspectives across seemingly completely different pieces.
So my camera and brush hint at an inherent universal pattern, and so too do other artists.
David Gentleman saw the patterns in his travels across these lands,
John Ruskin captured them in the simplest of bricks, Emily Bronte in her Wuthering Heights, Gustav Holst felt them in The Planets and Anni Albers expressed them through her remarkable textiles.
In each new piece of art that I make, I see traces of something familiar. It doesn’t feel like I’m capturing something external, but rather something deep within that echoes the non-human world and this is what I’m sensing as I sketch two ladies in the cafe at Howden.
There’s a quote by Pablo Neruda that illustrates how I feel: “There is another reality, the genuine one, which we lose sight of. This other reality is always sending us hints, which without art, we can’t receive.”
Initially, it was my photography that helped me see the wider picture that took me to a raw truth - something that Douglas Adams (and his mice) hid beneath his irony and humour - that humans are not at the centre of everything. It’s something that I’ve repeated in previous digests.
But my art is guiding me beyond the stark reality of our hubris. It reveals that, despite our flaws and vulnerabilities, each of us holds the power to create something profoundly moving—something that, even in the darkest of places, has the potential to kindle light.
Each time we create—no matter what the medium and regardless of the result—we are holding onto the coattails of something far greater than ourselves. With every stroke, every captured moment, we are tethered to a deeper force, each of us adding our own small flicker to the collective light that pushes against the darkness. It’s not the mastery of the art that matters, but the act of creation itself that connects us to something enduring, something profoundly luminous. What that means is deeply comforting for those of us that feel benign in all that is happening around us: that the simple act of creation pushes back against the darkness.
And so, in the simplicity of a café in Howden, whilst sitting and sketching two people delightfully caught up in their own world, I see the truth as it really is and am reminded of the words of Virginia Woolf. In a passage that is patterned with the rhythm of the cosmos itself, they speak of everything that my pen and brush has taught me:
‘…behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we — I mean all human beings — are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art. Hamlet or a Beethoven quartet is the truth about this vast mass that we call the world. But there is no Shakespeare, there is no Beethoven; certainly and emphatically there is no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself.’
For me the Genius Loci Digest is a bit of light in the darkness.
I put my heart and soul into it and it takes a day a week to produce. With your support, I’m able to keep this digest free and public facing. 📸🏛🚐
SKETCHBOOK TOUR
Watercolour Sketchbook Book One (Part One)
In Howden I finished my first sketchbook that was set up to help me explore the medium of watercolour. I have painted in watercolour before, but not in such a cohesive and consistent way. Most of my previous work was completed in Copic alcohol based ink brushes.
The journey through the book (and the places in the book) has been so rewarding - tackling a newish medium and seeking out new places and people to meet and interact with.
The book is a concertina type sketchbook - bellowing out onto every page. I soon found out that the paper isn't that well suited to watercolour - but that enhanced the challenge and contributed to some lovely colour switches and textures.
I started my book with all my art equipment at the time:
The first watercolour was of the remarkable cloister at Hexham Abbey caught like a fly in amber in a later building. It was here that I met Bill Law - a remarkable artist who modulates his Parkinsons through his art.
Then, in something that was completely new to me - I set about sketching in a restaurant in Hexham.
Hexham is a great source of buildings of all ages. My next pages capture some of the variety in the town.
The next page finds me in Wickham in Hampshire inside Quob - I went inside for lunch based upon the Georgian exterior. The lunch was fine - but the interior wasn't to my liking.
When I'm home - I gravitate to two places: Bury and Rawtenstall. In the next sketch at Rawtenstall - I'm kick-starting the idea of creating a visual diary of my day.
A little later, whilst in Newcastle - I tried to develop it further - but it was too complicated and muddied..
A bit later - after a couple of pints at Jen and Steve's wedding in Ouseburn - things felt a little simpler..
Over in Middleham in Yorkshire I was transfixed by this view from the bus stop out towards the pop-up cafe. So many people came in and out and told me their own stories whilst waiting for the bus.
Over in Richmond in Yorkshire, on a day where there wasn't a cloud in the sky, I tramped around the town trying to find a spot to sketch. But, I was overwhelmed by the joy of it all. Eventually I settled on a little classical building on Newbiggin. After several attempts at a start I put my stuff away and cleared my mind and then started again - my brush just seemed to flow.
Whilst over photographing the Merchant Adventurers' Hall in York, I had to wait for the sun to move around into the right position - so, to fill in the time, I pulled out my sketchbook and captured my view. It was done between taking shots with the camera. Photography then watercolour, photography then watercolour - heaven.
Next day in York I decided to try and improve my visual diary idea. A little less cluttered.
Saffron Walden brought about a new challenge. I had my Inktense watercolour pencils with me and I thought I'd try and complete a full sketch with them. I don't like this at all - too saturated. I struggled with the medium. It’s a learning curve.
Back in Bury at the Art Museum I sketched a Bronze Age urn that held the ashes of, perhaps, the founders of the town - the 'B' of the Bang of Bury.
and later started to perfect the idea of my visual diary:
The lunchtime concerts in Bury Parish Church are a fabulous place to sketch:
I used my watercolour travel set at Duxford in Cambridgeshire, where I captured the joy of the place whilst a thunderstorm raged outside.
Andy Marshall
Maria Popova
Andy Marshall
Andy Marshall
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INTRODUCING MY ART SHOP
I’m delighted to share with you a carefully curated collection of sketches that reflect my journey and the spirit of place.
Each piece captures the essence of historic buildings and the deep connection we feel to the unique places that shape our landscape. These artworks represent my travels across the British Isles, exploring architecture through both photography and sketching.
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Photographs and words by Andy Marshall (unless otherwise stated). Most photographs are taken with Iphone 14 Pro and DJI Mini 3 Pro.
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