Four's (part of) a Crowd...(2)

graphite, putty eraser & watercolour/30x20cm
original source: 'The Guardian' 16/06/08

...Being the second drawing transcribed from the original newspaper photograph of a Euro 2008 football match crowd, this one following on to the right of the previous example, again, in its gridded format, serving as a discrete unit &, as synecdoche, as a part of the whole.

Enjoying the movie 'American Splendor' (as mentioned previously & now forming a part of the DVD collection) once again last night, it occurred that the drawings as a sequence (as intended) would function in some form in the manner of a comic strip & its consecutive panels, each relating to the previous one & establishing a dialogue with, constituting a narrative as they progress. In both instances, the individual cells function as discrete units, drawings in the own right, but having greater meaning when experienced cumulatively (although the football crowd drawings may be less dependent on this to a degree & also enjoy greater 'relational' freedom with adjacent sketches).

Soundtrack:


'The Essential Leonard Cohen'

Four's (part of) a Crowd...

graphite, putty eraser & watercolour/30x20cm
original source: 'The Guardian' 16/06/08

This drawing is a small section transcribed from a larger photographic original that formed the 'Eyewitness' centrespread in that day's (broadsheet format) 'Guardian'. The main appeal is that the figures, the faces, are arranged, contained, within a perfect grid format (our Modernist friend), one to a cell, formed by the metal safety barriers of the architectural structure of a football stadium (the photo was in fact taken at a Euro 2008 match). The range of expressions on the individuals' faces - often at odds with the colourful, oft-extravagant & mostly frivolous headgear they sport in support of their teams-nations - is, of course, a fascinating, human aspect of the image, & a challenge to realise in the context of the transcription of, in effect, a multiple portrait.

The intention is that the remainder of the original photograph will be 'processed' in similar manner, the separate, discrete sketches then going to form a much larger, multi-panelled piece: a project within 'The Project' as each of the individual drawings are to the whole.