July Digest(ed) #1: Drawing

Catching up with developments over the past month, &, to begin, (re)presenting evidence of a recent return to the practice of drawing, which has inexplicably - other than the lack of a proper project being engaged in, as has been a significant motivationally sustaining force over the last few years - & unexpectedly become becalmed since relocation.
The writing has also, it might be admitted, been somewhat blocked too, even whilst instances of visual encouragement &/or inspiration continue to occur, albeit in different forms than previously (obsessively chronicled), perhaps.

Notwithstanding, firstly here is a watercolour drawing of a still life composition that has something of an antecedent in a photograph of a 'found' arrangement of the particular book & another pair of sunglasses as blogged previously. Alas, that pair of shades suffered an irreparable breakage, only to be replaced by those of a design that proved much more in keeping with those of an 'aviator' style as depicted on the cover of Simon Reynolds' 'Retromania' (a compelling read), which suggested a more actively contemplative study might be processed, employing further layers through the tinted transparent lenses of the sunglasses, hence:


graphite & watercolour/30x20cm

[Soundtrack: the appropriately oft-retro stylings of The Lilac Time's 'Compendium: The Fontana Trinity' collection, another recent investment, as was the band's eponymous debut album, an especial, enduring delight with which to be gladly reacquainted]

Prior to such an exercise, an afternoon sat out on the patio, accompanied by pencils & sketchbook, had resulted in the following drawing, of the scene in the back garden, unusually concentrating specifically on the noticably linear aspects of the rotary clothes line & the strips of wood comprising the fencing panels around the perimeter:


graphite & coloured pencil/20x30cm

such a vision being inspired by an earlier browse through a physical copy of the 2001 Jerwood Drawing Prize catalogue where this most intriguing prizewinning drawing by Lisa Cathro was encountered.
The utilisation of the yellow coloured pencil was an attempt to achieve some form of visual 'vibration', a tonal 'singing' or 'humming', against the white of the paper ground.

Subsequently, & more obviously relating to the Cathro image, concentration-through-the-drawing-process was focussed upon the abstracted form of the network of lines of the rotary clothes line observed through & across each other, free-floating in some notional, suggested three-dimensional space:


graphite/20x30cm

In both drawings, the challenge was to follow the lines of cord with eye & pencil (not without difficulty where they overlap & merge visually) in the interests of some degree of resolution of form.

Such linear structures seem to be something of a theme in these (new) parts, too, given the form & design of the rather fab 'n' groovy 'Spirograph' light shade/fitting in which A & I have invested as an aspect of our domestic style drive...

July Digest(ed) #2: Photography

1: 'Drawing'

Recently found whilst pottering down a local country lane (the appropriately so-called 'Straight Mile'), two instances of 'drawing' - of an intriguingly 'symbolic' nature - upon the tarmac surface, with, in the first example, some complementary marks running at a right angle to...





Always, one wonders what meaning such mark(ing)s might have, whilst appreciating them for their aesthetic appeal.

2: 'Roadkill'

Also found were a couple of examples of rural aluminium can 'roadkill' amongst the laneside grass verges: note the rather chunky tyre tracks featured in the first instance, a signifier of the type of vehicle that might travel on country lanes...





On another occasion, with this time the location being a city centre car park, & although perhaps not technically 'roadkill' in the manner as has become traditional, a most intriguing purposeful arrangement of cans was found & thus photographically documented, with three of the group half-flattened & the fourth object untouched (indeed, unopened), something of a diversion but nonetheless considered to be a worthy addition to the canon of the cans as it continues to develop, away from what might be thought of as those moorings of the old & now-distanced 'double black lines' upon & alongside which the objects were formerly found & depicted.

Grease is Still the Word...

Presenting the fourth entry in the sequence of photographic recordings of the progress of grease marks made by the found object of a 'Hula Hoop' potato-based snack upon the found 'drawing' of an ostensibly 'blank' photocopy (but bearing in fact the printed record of the subtle marks made during the action of the copying process of nothing other than the inside of the machine's lid & the pattern of pinpoint marks upon).

Repositioned within the overall composition of the 'picture plane' once again, the object can be seen to have left another group of marks to the right of where it now rests, as ever significantly darker in tone than the white surface of the paper, recording, 'painting' (well, & in the interests of integrity too, it is oil, after all) evidence of this placement, which marks exist in relation to the subtle tones of the printed dots & the horizontal stripe of the photocopy-as-found-'drawing', & also the shadows cast by the object as fixed in the photograph...




Once more, a certain subtle expansion of the grease marks might also be observed to have occurred.

To end this particular sequence of recorded observations (coming to a natural end as the day job, the environment in which this particular process has taken place & been documented, goes into its summer hibernation - aware of the contradictory nature of that last pairing of words), here is presented the 'drawing-painting' in & for itself, without the obvious three-dimensional element of the Hula Hoop object: a collection, composition, of various marks made by mechanical printing & organic means (being, amongst other things, a photograph of the physical print of a photographic process, of course), both organized & to a certain extent controlled, & otherwise left to the chance action of one object, & substance, upon another, very much in the manner of drawing & painting.