The visual sketchbook by Claire Hankey.
Using My Camera as a Visual Sketchbook: Walking, Photography and Printmaking
Why My Camera Has Become a Sketchbook
For a long time I thought of sketchbooks as something you fill with pencil marks, but lately my camera has taken on that role. On my recent walks I’ve been collecting images the way I might once have gathered quick studies on a page, noticing what catches my attention and gathering it up to look at again later.
Artist Inspiration: Finding Texture on a Walk
Looking back through these images, the common thread is texture. The weathered surface of a door, the ripple of water across the estuary, the fine tangle of a hedgerow, the worn grain of old wood. These are the things I find myself stopping for, and they’re rarely what I’d call a subject in the traditional sense. They’re surfaces, small details that are easy to walk past when we’re in a hurry to be somewhere else. For me, this kind of noticing is where my artist inspiration begins.
Black and White Photography: Why Removing Colour Matters
When I take the colour out of these photographs, the texture becomes even more important. Without colour to lean on, the eye is drawn to the pattern of light and shadow, the depth of a surface and the marks that time and weather have left behind. Details that felt quiet in colour become almost tactile in black and white, and that’s exactly the quality I’m looking for when I think about making a print.
From Photographs to Photopolymer Etching
That’s where the sketchbook idea really comes into its own. I’m currently selecting which of these images to use for photopolymer etching as part of my scrolls project. Photopolymer etching translates a photograph into a plate that holds all that fine tonal detail, so the choice of image matters a great deal. Each photograph I choose has to earn its place, and editing them down is a lovely way of discovering what I’m really drawn to.
The Scrolls Project: Memories of Time Outdoors
The scrolls began with a practical question: how do you hold a series of walks together? A single framed print shows one moment, but my walks aren’t single moments. They’re long stretches of looking, with one surface leading into the next, and I wanted a format that could carry that.
A Chinese handscroll works in a way I find useful to think about. It’s viewed in sections, one hand unrolling as the other rolls up, so you only ever see a portion at a time. What you’ve already seen disappears and what’s coming hasn’t arrived yet. That’s much closer to how I remember a walk than a single image is. I don’t recall all of it at once. I recall the gate, then the water, then the hedgerow, in the order I passed them.
I’m making the scrolls as black and white photopolymer etchings, so the sequence depends on texture and tone rather than colour. Rust, ripples and tangled stems sit side by side on the same length of paper, and what connects them is the way each one was looked at.
I don’t know yet exactly how the finished scrolls will look, and I’m enjoying that. Deciding which image follows which is turning out to be the real work, and it feels more like editing a piece of writing than arranging a display.
How Walking Slows Down the Way I Look
Using the camera in this way has also changed how I walk. Knowing I’m gathering material makes me slow down and look more carefully, and that attentiveness is really what the whole practice is about. The camera isn’t a way of capturing things quickly, it’s a way of making myself stay with them a little longer.
Try It Yourself: A Simple Photography Walk
If you’d like to try it, you don’t need anything special. Take a walk with your phone or camera, choose a single kind of surface to look for, and see how many different versions of it you can find. You might be surprised by how much there is once you start noticing.
Photocollage and Image Transfer: Learn My Process
Photography sits at the heart of my photocollage and image transfer work too. If you’re interested in learning how I use it, you can find out more about my online courses here.
What Chinese Handscrolls Have Taught Me About My Scrolls Project
While working on the scrolls I’ve been reading about Chinese handscrolls, and a few things I found have changed how I think about my own.
The first is that a handscroll is never seen all at once. It’s unrolled on a table, from right to left, with one hand opening the scroll as the other rolls it up, so only a section about the width of your shoulders is in view. What you’ve already looked at is rolled away and what’s coming hasn’t appeared yet. I hadn’t realised how much that shapes the experience until I read about it, and it’s very close to how I remember a walk, one stretch at a time and in the order I passed it.
The second is that a traditional landscape scroll isn’t a record of a single day or a single view. It follows the experience of travelling through a place, with the atmosphere and the angle of looking shifting as you go. Much of Western landscape painting frames a scene from one fixed spot, whereas the scroll moves with you. That is exactly what I want from mine, a sequence of surfaces and moments rather than one picture of one place.
I was also struck by how private the format was. Handscrolls were often brought out for a few friends gathered in a home, then rolled up and put away again, and the pace was set by whoever held the scroll. There was no standing back and taking it in at a glance. I like the idea that someone could unroll one of mine slowly, at their own speed, and spend time with each section before moving on.
Lastly, I came across the Chinese word for landscape, shan shui, which literally means mountain and water. My own work keeps returning to the estuary, so water and land sitting together in a single word felt worth noting.
I’m not trying to make traditional Chinese scrolls. My images are black and white photopolymer etchings made from photographs of rust, ripples and hedgerows on the walks near where I live. But the way the format asks you to look, slowly, in sequence and one section at a time, is something I’m borrowing very deliberately.
If you are interested I recommend watching this inofrmative youtube video from christie's about six handscroll paintings...
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