Tornado Drawings, The Limitations of Logic and the Absence of Absolute Certainty - Run Two
2011

These drawings track the movement and path of the tornado. The drawings are influenced by hurricane tracking charts that use grids to map the path of these storms. Each drawing starts as a grid of ink drops, the fans are turned on for a set period of time in order to trace the path of the tornado.

As the tornado is completely unenclosed it gets buffeted by the random, chaotic forces of turbulence within the room making the vortex snake around the foor. This gives the tornado its own anthropomorphic character. This new series of drawings capture that character, each telling a unique narrative, a few minutes of the tornado's progress across the paper.

These drawings have been made both with Parker Quink Ink and indian inks. The Parker inks have been used to make blue and black drawings, keeping the sensibilities and simplicity of the single ink drop drawings in Run One, while capturing the movement over time.

Other drawings have been made with the colours of the Beaufort Wind Force Scale in indian ink. This scale is used to measure wind speed from 0 (blue, calm) to 12 (red, hurricane force), the grid is divided into a rainbow of stripes of each colour. As the ink drops are of different colours you can see where they have sprayed ink as the tornado moves across the paper, more accurately tracking the progress. The colours of the Beaufort scale gives a different kind of beauty to the drawings, while tying them into the language of weather charts, and experimentation.