Project Four : On Ice

When I heard about this project title, I asked myself what could I do on the subject of on ice?
I'd rather not do something that is actually frozen, to melt away slowly in the studio and be gone. Only to be recorded by photo's and memory.
The one thing came to mind and was my father - a man of many stories and many near death experiences.

It was then I remembered a newspaper article that he had shown me. I'd love to post it on here, I will later but for now, it's glued in my sketchbook.
The articles title is The worst himalayan storm in fifteen years. The photo's on the front shows my father standing proud and him climbing out of the tent that was buried under three metres of snow.
The main reason that I chose this, was is he had died I wouldn't have been here today.

I was sad to find out that my father had no original photo's or even the newspaper document. All that he had was a typed version of his first hand account and a Christmas card from one of the men on the expedition.
So I went and searched on the internet with the name of the expedition 'Jade Venture' and low and behold, a vast amount of information popped up.

I found an interesting and informative journal that had plenty of photo's by Luke Hughes (one of the members on the expedition)
Journal

The expedition consisted of 18 people (8 were soldiers, 1 being my father). They left England on the 8th of September 1987 and were Due to be back 9th November. On the 19th September they walked into Tibet and on the 23rd Spetember, Base camp was established (In the meadow above a lake, beneath the face a Nyanang Ri).
On the 17th October and during the storm my brother was born in Kircaldy Hospital. My father was oblivious to this as he had no contact to the outside world.

After contacting the army mountaineering club secretary (I asked if they possibly had any further information on the Jade Venture and my father) I waited patiently and carried on developing in my sketchbook.

When I heard no reply after two weeks I decided to do my final piece using the black and white photo's in the alpine journal and the newspaper article.
Using an old flannel bed cover, I stitched the torn pieces into the shape of the mountain but large enough so that it would cover the wood board I was using.

I didn't realise just how time consuming hand sewing was. This took me two whole days and if I had more I probably would have added more detail.

 Once I was happy with what I had sewn, I used PVA glue round the sewn edges to stick it to the board.

Once that was done I painted the sky a pale grey and roughly drew my fathers photo on top. I then used a medium that had the texture of putty. I used this in the background, to resemble to snow and more to build of the shape of the drawing.

From there I quickly painted my father in acrylic and then painted Xixabangma (the name of the mountain) at the top. In the photo below I wrote on the blanket - The mountain almost devoured my father but in it's failure I was born.

Once that was done we had my painting put on the wall of the studio and my fathers first hand account papers suck on the blank of wood below.

I like how my final piece turned out but I forgot to add one thing to it and that was a piece of thread and a sewing needle because I liked the expression "Hanging on by a thread".