Here’s an interesting blog about how an artist works, their creative process.
Emerging Patterns
I’m continuing to work with the paper I marbled earlier in the week, squinting and staring at the random shapes and letting them form into something that makes some sort of sense. I read recently that artists may see patterns in things more readily than other people. It didn’t take me long to see the broad shoulders emerging near the top of the paper and the rest of the male body developed very quickly.
I’m resisting the temptation to overwork it. I’m trying to keep the drawings of Egon Schiele in mind as I develop these works on marbling, keeping the line simple and flowing and not working in a lot of detail; making the figures spontaneous and minimal. The Fabriano paper has been ‘distressed’ by snails because I left it out overnight and they’ve nibbled some interesting patterns into the surface. The drawing has been done with willow charcoal, Bideford Black and white conte crayon.
Like Watching Clouds
I carried on doing some intuitive drawing today, using some of the Fabriano paper I marbled last week; the ones I left outside to dry and then forgot about and left out overnight. The papers have been chewed and roughened by snails and it makes the surface more interesting. I stood across the room and squinted a bit and gradually some human shapes started to form. I tentatively drew them with willow charcoal and then, when I was happy with the line, I went over it with carbon and Bideford Black. I darkened some of the areas of marbling with the Biddy Black and finally used a white conte crayon to put in some very small highlights.
I have always worked from life, strictly observational drawings, even if I embellish them later. This process today is far more like watching clouds and seeing what patterns form in them. I remembered that when I was a small child, I used to do just that, gaze at the clouds for ages and then draw the things I saw on whatever paper was at hand. More often than not it was cut-up brown paper bags from the grocer. My mother couldn’t afford to buy me sketchpads so she’d keep all the brown bags from shopping for me to scribble on. Kids these days would find it hard to scribble on plastic grocery bags.
Scribble At The Pictures
I’ve had a rough few days with a stomach bug and not felt up to doing anything creative, not even some sketching, but today Husb and I treated ourselves to a visit to the cinema to see Avengers: Age Of Ultron. Loved it! I did a quick scribble before the main feature started. Looking along the row, the angle compressed the figures into a clump so I quickly drew them, concentrating on trying to get the proportions between the figures right. It was pretty dark, but that’s good practice. I drew into my A5 hardbacked sketchbook with a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen, size F.
See How It Goes
I’m going into a phase of experimentation for a while. I have been marbling some Fabriano Accademica paper with black oil pigment and turpentine and I left it out in the garden to dry out; it was quite smelly because of the turps. I forgot about it and it was out overnight and when I looked at it today, snails had attacked it, chewing out some small holes but also munching away at the surface, making it textured in places. Interesting.
I’ve been rooting through old sketchbooks, looking for drawings to work from and I quite like this simple one, done in an olive pastel at a life drawing session. I’ll use it as the basis for drawing onto the marbled paper, with different black and white media; graphite, willow charcoal, carbon, Bideford Black and oil pastel. And see how it goes…….
Return To Life
I’ve been so busy with the series of silkscreen prints over the past few weeks that I haven’t been to life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop for ages. So back to normal this evening and I did this head study using my Samsung Galaxy Tablet Note 8 with the free Markers app.
I saved the drawing frequently so that I could put together a slideshow of the different stages of development. I got really scribbly.
How Stephen King Destroyed My Childhood
Brilliant artblog, so funny with excellent illustrations
Waste Not, Want Not.
So I was working with some fellow artists and one of them, a painter, chucked some black oil paint mixed with turps down the sink. Unfortunately, the sink was blocked so he filled it with water and squeezed some washing up liquid into it and suddenly it went all marbled. So, waste not, want not, I grabbed some of my Fabriano Accademica paper and threw it on top of the water and marbled my paper. It’s been sitting round for a few months and I’d just about forgotten about it until today, when I decided to do some drawing.
I’ve been working on a series of silkscreen prints over the past few weeks, tight design and a very specific technical process and I wanted to get back to something intuitive, so I grabbed my marbled paper and various black drawing media: some willow charcoal, carbon, compressed charcoal and Bideford Black. And I got stuck in. I used an old life drawing very loosely as a basis and then got into the zone, moving the media across the paper, just letting it happen.
Tomorrow I Scribble!
Here’s a short video that Husb edited together from a digital drawing I did some time ago. I used a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 with a free Markers app and saved the drawing frequently, which showed the progress of the drawing. The model is a young artist who poses for our local life drawing group and I drew him about a year ago. It’s interesting seeing these digital drawings edited together, it gives me an idea of how I draw. I’m not aware of it at the time, it’s something I do instinctively.
I’ve done very little daily drawing for a few weeks now; I’ve been so busy making a series of 10 screenprints based on artists that inspire me and there’s been no time for sketching. So tomorrow I’m back to wandering around with my sketchbooks and pens and a few lumps of graphite and some white conte crayon in my bag. Tomorrow I scribble!
Egon And The Paper
Here’s the last of my series of screenprints of favourite artists for a while. I prepared a screen to take to last Sunday’s Art Car Boot Fair in London’s Brick Lane and started to print it during the afternoon. I used a different vintage paper to the one I used for all the women artists. I used a British made W.S.H & Co for Egon Shiele, no longer made unfortunately. It has a beautiful deckle edge and a slightly rough texture and is a silvery white. Gorgeous. Can’t get paper like this in Britain any more. Such a shame.
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