The deep shadows and structural qualities to Billy Clark’s work lend themselves perfectly to the sun-scorched scenes he creates. Both bare stretches of sky and figurative contours are accented by his play with light and shade.
Billy talks to us about how an important early stage in his image making process is about reducing his initial sketches down into simpler forms.
Pair this with the open and sunlit landscapes he often depicts and you get a sense of a dramatic quiet and tranquility. His images are grand but equally still—soft but vibrant at the same time.
My process is pretty straightforward really, always starting with a sketch and applying blocks of colour in gouache. Then, depending on the project, I sometimes move to digital to apply texture, tidy things up, and really get the colours working as I want them to.
The initial stage of my work is probably the most peculiar, as I find it really useful to draw the same thing over and over again, simplifying each time and steering the sketch towards my style.
My instinct is to sometimes over-embellish, so there’s an element of discipline and judgement involved in simply knowing when to stop,but I think this gets easier with time.
© Billy Clark, 2016
