Place

Tactics: take 30 seconds of film either side of the still. Play it at normal speed, freezing it every 1 second to draw the skyline.

I don’t like the mark-making in this – too controlled – lacks expression

More about my work: my website – twitter feed

My other blogs: project survey – the alternative gallery – inspiration

Similar tactics as before: use a new still shot, take 30 seconds of film either side of it, play this at 25% speed and draw the results. Repeat this four times, quickly, one after the other. These are the results:

Draw, erase, draw, erase, draw, erase, draw…
Until one loses something of oneself in the moment
The purposefully drawn line stronger…
Than a rushed (failed) attempt to capture everything that speeds past

The nature of the marks made feel similar to those achieved when drawing the previous still but their placement has shifted. This could be accidental but the repeat drawings indicate not. There’s a pattern to the marks made that remains consistent across multiple drawings of the same footage. The drawing may not capture much real – accurate – but does trap something of the essence of the thing in terms of horizontal / vertical planes and density.

If I assemble the final results – glass over print – with a slight gap between them, the results are subtly 3-dimensional. There’s a push / pull effect in terms of the original image, drawing on the surface of the glass and the way reflections from the surroundings interfere with the act of viewing.

What happens if the process is reversed – film footage is projected through a drawn still?

Note, print size reduced from 28 x 50 cm to 24.5 x 43.5 cm – a better, more modest scale that still allows free drawing.

More about my work: my website – twitter feed

My other blogs: project survey – the alternative gallery – inspiration

The third drawing in this set of experiments:

Bought new pens – Staedtler Permanent Lumocolor fine and superfine refillable nibs – and used the fine one for this drawing.

Summary

This feels like a step forward

Pen thickness ideal – more subtle mark-making

Less uniform placement of marks allows more of the still print to emerge

I drew in a more relaxed way, connecting me with the seismic, biorhythm drawings of a few months ago

Drawing unconsciously – making one’s body part of the drawing tool – needs practice but success allows something of one’s state of mind to emerge

Test next if changing the still materially alters the feel of the resulting drawing

More about my work: my website – twitter feed

My other blogs: project survey – the alternative gallery – inspiration

Here’s my second attempt at a drawing:

I bought a selection of new pens – Artline 70, Artline 700, Staedtler Permanent Lumocolor pen (medium) and a pencil – and eventually settled on the Staedtler  as the most appropriate thickness for this drawing.

What I drew: 30 seconds of film either side of the still, run at 25% speed (4 minutes drawing time). The final print size for the still is 28.12 x 50 cm (these proportions are as the camera shot them), printed at 100% saturation.

Summary: I think this second drawing is an improvement in terms of the thickness of the drawn lines and the emotion trapped within the stroke. However the area covered is too consistent – I’d like to see areas saturated – obliterated – in lines & areas that have no marks where the print comes through strongly. The drawing below gives some idea of what this might look like.

I need to use perspex rather than glass – latter is too dangerous. Future drawings need a paper mask on the glass / perspex to prevent lines straying.

More about my work: my website – twitter feed

My other blogs: project survey – the alternative gallery – inspiration