Spying Scribbling Cutting Printing

I often think of artists as voyeurs, spying on and recording what’s around us. We had a lovely sunny day in the middle of last week and I opened one of the big windows in my new studio and looked down at the pavement three floors below. Suddenly, someone walked past beneath me and I noticed what an odd shape they made. Then a couple of people stood almost directly below me. Again, really odd shapes. I grabbed my digital camera and snapped away for the next 15 minutes or so and downloaded the photos onto my laptop. Nobody noticed me snapping them – my camera is quiet and people rarely look up for no good reason.

I spent a bit of time over the next few days converting the images to black and white and simplifying them by cranking up the contrast [in Adobe Photoshop] then I drew a series of them onto tracing paper using some good quality Derwent pencils in B, 2B and 4B. I cut some 15 x 15 cm blocks from an offcut of polycarbonate [signwriters] foam. I turned the drawings over and placed each onto a piece of foamblock. Using a 4H sharpened pencil, I drew over the lines, transferring the drawing onto the surface of the block. Then I picked around the outline with a small sable brush and black Indian ink. Finally I worked into the image with Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens [sizes S and F] and a little grey inkwash. I still have some more drawing to do on this image. Once I’m satisfied, the next stage will be to cut it and then, hopefully this Saturday, I’ll print it down at Swansea Print Workshop. There’s a lot to printmaking!