Back to work. After a fairly unsatisfactory Easter (the only thing I really achieved was building a shed) I’m back on target.
My portfolio has been bugging me, I loath drawing. Why draw when I can make something? White paper. Blurk.
I think it’s purely because the kind of drawing I admire is very striking and illustrative but what I can achieve owes more to gestural and loose drawing. So I’m never happy with what I produce.
But when I have to draw (i.e. all the time) I have to make it entertaining for myself. So using brown paper and reclaimed terracotta roof tiles makes the whole production feel less like drawing.
Two things suprised me;
Number One: All the colour! I’ve been using terracotta in it’s unglazed form, just the finest hint of salts coming through but basically- orange. Yet here I have vibrant colours popping up and out of the page.
Perhaps it’s drawing on brown that’s done it, after all, difficult to draw brown on brown. But I think it’s something else. Which leads me to…
Number Two: Prisms and not people. I”ve drawn figures over, and over, and over again for this project. I’m not bored of them by any means, but I have been alone in my little studio/spare room looking at my wallpaper. On the plus side- I’m making art about feeling alone and this is where these sketches come from. On the down side- I have no idea how (or even if) I should incorporate these designs.
The department has also ran out of terracotta. I managed to buy some in Newcastle and lug it home on the metro (boy was I popular that day) but it’s like having a tube of paint that’s running out. I’m being a bit too precious and a bit too scared to make mistakes.
I feel good about being back at work, I’d worried that my lack of enthusiasm and motivation over the break meant I’d never make it as an artist, I think I just had a holiday.
