Drawing Journal

I made a long journey over these last few days and my drawing was, inevitably, restricted to the faces and bodies that shared those brief pitstops at motorways services with me. They are bleak places, particularly in the early mornings. It takes a while for me to warm up, intellectually as well as physically, and my seeing and responding is slow. And everyone is mostly on the move, rushing here and there, takeaway coffee in hand. There is little communing, especially in those wee small hours. Some faces (and bodies) caught me and I tried to draw them – such as the elderly woman yesterday, sitting, her knees opened-wide (she wore a long skirt), her mask under her chin, reading a magazine and eating a breadstick (which took her some while to open).

Or the girl in dungarees, sitting rather awkwardly on a wooden chair her left leg crossed over the right. Or the other elderly lady, who, after shouting down her mobile phone at someone or other, sat, demurely behind her handbag listening amiably (and silently) to her friend.

I watched people order, talk, text, phone and eat. Like the man with the huge beard wearing lycra leggings under shorts who, albeit imperceptibly, jerked his groin while he read texts, or the other man in a hat who ate his burger like a ravenous animal. The people I drew reflected the no man’s land-ness of such places (where conventions & etiquette appear disregarded), finding comfort in the food and the caffeine, with some staring into space while they waited (like the couple who didn’t say one word to each other for a whole hour), while others seemed to forget the banality and engaged in heated conversation, such as the two men clearly discussing ‘business’. ‘He’s a good bloke,’ said one, ‘really down to earth.’

The quality of the drawing is, understandably, less satisfying to me on such occasions – and I really need to resolve the issue of favouring a thinner, smoother paper for, sketching quickly (and hungrily), I end up doubling up and they show through. Is it about the end result or the act of doing? Or both, perhaps?

Having spent the morning writing I drew in my studio yesterday. It isn’t the same. I need the vitality of a moving object – be it person, machine or animal. I need that element of risk, of potential flitting to grab my intense attention (and to still the thinking and judging). I drew things, my materials mostly but it’s hard to make life-ful marks, I become too precious. But I also want to learn how to introduce colour and context in my drawings. Colour can often seem an afterthought for me (perhaps I see mostly in black and white?). Drawing outside – even if it’s an inanimate object can instil a little more vibrancy – maybe it’s the discomfort or the fear of being watched or interrupted. All these risk factors make a difference – my studio is too safe.

Made up for the lack yesterday by spending 2 hours drawing in the café this morning, though I was less than happy with the results. I didn’t stray beyond pen and ink though I’d come prepared for more. I watched and drew. No one came that near so it was just people in the queue (with masks) and the group of women who gathered on the far table. I thought it was a WI meeting but then they sang happy birthday (in Welsh). They were an animated group – much laughter. Nice. Then a mother and son came to sit in a table just beyond me. He was dressed for school. She was on the phone the whole time. They didn’t talk to each other. She clenched her fist as she spoke on the phone. A glamourous woman with lots of energy. She did put her hand on his back as they left. The old man with the dog was in again and the man who I see most mornings. His new friend seems to have become a permanent fixture.

Do these drawings have to go anywhere – become something else or is this enough? Am I beginning to see better?

Are you drawing me? asked a woman whom I was drawing in a Costa Coffee shop yesterday. She didn’t seem too perturbed when I admitted that I was, merely shrugging her shoulders and suggesting that there might be more attractive people to sketch. I did try to continue with the drawing but she kept catching my eye so I shifted my attention elsewhere. I prefer to draw unseen, particularly by the object of my study. I like to catch people unawares when their movements and gestures are less self-conscious and often, as a result, more poignant.

I’d travelled to a distant town in order to see an exhibition I was to review, hence my visiting of an unfamiliar Costa. It was dark and cold in there and an age until people actually sat down (most were ordering take-away coffees). However, an interesting interaction began to play out before my eyes. An area manager had clearly turned up and was gently admonishing and training the manager and staff during which the coffee grinder went kaput and the queue built steadily and ominously. I tried to capture what I felt to be the anxiety of it all, though the manager appeared rather sanguine. Elsewhere in the café were what was clearly a mother and son (she talked, he absently-mindedly listened), the woman I’d tried to draw noisily telling her friend about her new kitchen, a middle-aged man with huge fingers eating a burger and another giant of man with his baseball cap on backwards.

I just stuck to my fountain pen, it was too dark to use anything else and I was nervous about the show I’d yet to visit. I wasn’t pleased with my efforts but when I scanned my sketchbook they didn’t seem so bad. Sometimes it’s like that, isn’t it? You just have to keep doing what you’re doing until you get that click….

I’m still experimenting with materials and mark-making on paper, though mostly line wins out. Line drawings are faster, and for me, more immediately responsive. I draw with all kinds of pens – fine and thick. Currently I’m favouring ink, and use a fountain and my favourite a dip pen. They are highly impractical and messy but the line can be stunning. And again, it’s that not thinking too much. And the scratch across the paper is glorious. One of the most marvellous things about drawing is there are no rules (at least not any longer). I love that sense of urgency that drives the hand forward – anxious to capture, to describe, to just get it down. And I’m beginning to see better.

I like it best when the café is busy. The buzz creates an energy that I really respond to – and before I know it I’m on a roll. And there are the same people coming in again and again. I love that too. There’s the old man with his old dog, both a little whiskery and doddery. And the man who usually sits on his own reading his phone. Today he has company. They speak in Welsh. He looks more animated. Two girls sit across for me, laughing. And the skinny lad who used to work there has just come in for a take-away drink. I’ve drawn him so many times. He has three jobs, I’ve heard him tell a customer, to pay for his tattoos. How I love this. What a privilege to watch people like this.

I’m trying to build up my confidence, not only in drawing again but drawing in public. It’s funny, drawing is, for me at least, essentially a private occupation and yet I feel I need to do it in public. And by doing so I am aware that it becomes a kind of performance. Regulars in my chosen café have begun to notice, though most say nothing.  I like that. I draw the same faces and bodies over and over again. And by doing so I feel that I come to know them (though we’ve never exchanged a word). The last two days I’ve stuck with line. I like ink best. I draw fast, it is better that way, for my brain isn’t given a chance to interfere – it is bypassed. I want to capture gait, details, facial expressions and hand gestures. I love the ways in which people inhabit space, what they put on the tables, drape over chairs and so on – like the middle-aged lady who rests her folded paper over her handbag (is it to hide it?). And the solitary café frequenters who never sit still – the fidgeters, who are always smoothing their hair, or shifting position. One elderly man sat twirling his thumbs round and round. Drawing is not only an act of deep-seeing but one of compassion also.