Visit to Heath Robinson exhibition Woking Lightbox

I have been familiar with Heath Robinson's work since childhood, but I've never looked at it with a critical eye before. I came away with huge admiration for the way that he uses black and white and composition. I found his colour prints sucessful, but I was less impressed with his use of watercolour and bodycolour which seemed to dilute his dramatic compositions.

I find his use of line and mark making from dots to cross hatching to more free lines, really inspirational. Perhaps the most interesting thing from my point of view though was his bold use of blank space. He uses line drawn figures/scenes and silhouette in foregrounds and backgrounds to draw the eye around the image. He also uses vast areas of white or black space, which are seldom related to light source, but more to mood atmosphere or simply to balance his composition. 

His humour reminds me of Wallace and Gromit, i think Nick Park must have been a fan! Also, he followed the basic rule of comedy that a 'funny' character must have absolutely no  idea that he is funny! Robinson feels it's important that his comic character, Uncle Lubin, takes himself very seriously, just as Basil Fawlty takes himself too seriously and has an over-inflated sense of his own status. The purety of his succesful images is astounding, it's precision and detail and his ability to draw an entire scene is something that I will try to learn from.