Draw, Draw, Draw!

I did this painting a long time ago - I still like it although it is bit primitive. I think it was the first painting I did where I consciously, unconsciously allowed the little creatures to come to the surface.

Initially it was going to be a painting of beach rocks and sea worn wood supports. I loved the way the wood was sculpted by the water and had become more wood-like than the wood ever was. And as i worked i realised that there were creatures there in the corner of my eye that just needed to be brought out and given life. And so i did.

I think I painted this in around '93 or '94. That was the time that i was preparing to go to college. I was very naive. I asked a couple of friends (who had been to art college) what i should do to prepare, they both told me the same thing - draw, draw and draw. So every day after work i did a drawing, some were good and some were bad and slowly I got together a body of work which was passable and could be turned into a portfolio.

But above all my confidence in my drawing improved no end. the routine of drawing is such a good exercise, you cannot help but improve. In fact, I later learned in college that someone (it is killing me because i can't remember which artist is was - possibly Rembrandt?) had said "everyone has 10,000 bad drawings in them' The trick therefore is to get them out as quick as possible - so draw, draw, draw!!

In fact, that is really what I should start to do again - a quick sketch first thing in the morning to get warmed up. If I did 10 quick sketches a day it would take me (quick calculation) 1,000 days or (quick calculation) 2.75 years (approx for all you mathematics nuts out there). that is doable :-)

That would certainly keep me busy!

Actually I started this very day by preparing source material to draw, but then the day took other turns as i wanted to glue the two sides of my medal (and the little extra one which i will post tomorrow - if you are good!) together, so i had to nip out to the Europris to try to get some superglue. Unfortunately they did not have any so i bought some olive oil, jasmine rice and some cotton buds instead. I know, I know but bear with me. Then I got home, had to have a spot of lunch and then darted out again - once more missing the sunshine so had to return for my umbrella, ella. This time I managed, after one abortive shop to find superglue and a tin of christmas gold spray paint as well. So now I have glued, sanded and sprayed the two new medals as well as spraying a previous one.

Of course, as I have already said - these are all just models for medals - which I will save until I can get them cast properly in bronze. But the gold spray paint helps you to view the way it might look when finished and smoothes out the little colour variations in the super-sculpey which distract from the overall medal surface.

Ok - i am going to stop now as the fumes from the spray paint have gone to my head, which is why I am rambling completely this evening.

I promise to be more lucid in the morning - and no spraying tomorrow!

Nude Study

When I was in college I was lucky enough to be able to tap into many life drawing sessions that were going on - some during my own studio time, some at lunchtimes and sometimes just at random other times.

I loved it! and I hated it! It is so difficult to do it well! Though of course there are some people who are soooo talented that they just breeze through it all without ever tearing their hair out. I found it very difficult, very challenging but so rewarding when something went right and when you learned something new about the human body that creates such a beautiful form or line.

As you can see from this drawing I am most concerned with volume and form. I look and look at the model until I start to see slight shadows that define the form of the body and the muscles and bones beneath the skin.

Now of course, i could have used charcoal (which of course i do from time to time also) which makes great shadows and wonderful dramatic shadings and forms with good strong dark and smokey greys on crisp white paper. I, however, prefer to use this method of drawing, which is using a fine pen with ink. This one I think is done with an instant ink pen - as in I do not have to load it with ink, but some drawings done with a dip pen do make wonderful sort of jerky lines that are non uniform and come and go and ebb and flow and sometimes make great black blobs of ink! But if you remember me talking about the 'happy accident' you will recall that it can in fact enhance the finished drawings. Sometimes though it can ruin it!

With this instant pen you get a much more uniform line but you can just keep drawing and drawing without running out of ink (well of course the pens do run out and you have to throw them away and get a new one in) and you can do those wonderful hatching and cross hatching lines that I so adore. It is a small bit anal I must admit, but I love the rhythm of working this way and discovering new shadows, as I mentioned above, as you work and work the surface of the paper.

The nude itself becomes nothing more than a slab of meat - if that does not sound too rude, but you do stop noticing that it is a naked body as you become obsessed with the lines, the forms and the volumes.

The importance of life drawing is manifold. For me especially I find that by drawing so much all the time I absorb what a body looks like and how it works - By 'copying' from life, if you will, the information passes into my brain in a subconscious way and then when I start to do a sculpture from out of my head all that information comes out - sometimes it becomes warped or spliced with other forms, nuts or leaves or whatever I am fascinated with at the time, but there are those nice volumes and forms to draw on. It is great and makes the work more interesting even if it is an abstracted or distorted piece.

So those are a few notes on Life Drawing for you and I hope you enjoy the drawing too.