Drawing Journal

My ACW funded project doesn’t begin until mid September but I’m still trying to uphold my resolution to make a drawing every day. It’s an up and down thing, and sometimes just a case of following the tracks. I’ve been trying visiting cafes and coffee shops to stop me getting too comfortable and safe (it is definitely people I want and need to draw). Each one demands something else, requiring  another sort of looking, of watching.

I try not to get too formulaic but it is hard not to. I have my favourite tools (don’t we all?) that enable a kind of short-cutting.

And there’s always this asking of myself how – can I draw better, see better, feel better? Drawing seems like an act of compassion, of fellow-feeling. At least, that is how I see it, or am I being fanciful?

I watch them eating their breakfast, their lunch, drinking their coffees and teas. Some come in alone, others come as couples. Some talk, others consume in silence. What is it that I am doing, staring or looking? What is it I am really trying to do? Is it a case of standing in someone else’s shoes or merely curiosity?

And it’s not just about likeness capturing, not really. There’s something more I aim to trap, to put to paper, what is it? – a mood, a sense of being in a particular environment, a questioning as to why they go there, to that especial place? Is it because it is familiar, safe?

Do I respond to or answer some of these questions or none at all?

They said yes. I’ve been awarded a grant after the second try. I begin my Gallery Watching in September. The fear of what I have left myself in for comes and goes, as does my confidence in my drawing. Nevertheless, I keep on doing it. I have to. I need to. Meanwhile I take tentative steps outside my comfort zone and begin drawing in other cafes and indeed art galleries. It is an exposing experience but I need to accustom myself to it.

Wish me luck. E

It’s a compunction that certainly began at art school. Drawing was always held up to be the ultimate in expression, the fundament of it, if not the whole. For me it has gone beyond that, though I must admit to seeing some of my past tutors (usually in their role as panel members, passing judgement) in my mind’s eye as I draw and feeling the warmth of their approval at my trying, if not always succeeding. To try is enough, it seems.

It’s been a week totally dedicated to writing and trying to earn a living and I am rusty. It hurts. I know what is possible but my brain and my hand don’t. He offers encouragement from the wings, couching it in sporting analogies. And I keep on going, trying and the perseverance seems to work. I loosen up.

Turning my attention from myself and my stumblings to them and the details of their physiognomy, gait, clothes, gestures and narratives. Are they Spanish or Italian, do you think? I ask him, whispering because they are at the next table.

Spanish, we both agree as the mother/wife turns to smile at me. And then there is the other mother and daughter.

One so tiny, as she perches on her chair waiting for her daughter to bring her coffee. And the daughter, so floating in her red silk dress, and tall. I watch as she reaches off to remove sleep from her mother’s eyes. Can they possibly be related, or is the story I lend them awry?

We don’t stay long, the struggle has taken it out of me, but not before I draw the marvellous man with the wild hair reading The Observer, with food all down the front of his mauve sweatshirt. He crumbles a piece shortbread into mouth as he reads. At point he looks up and sees what I am doing and smiles.

I’ve been thinking about sketchbooks. They are beautiful things, well they can be. I love the paraphernalia of them, the elasticated straps that hold them in place, the endpapers, the red ribbons that save a page. I like them small, pocket-size, hand-size and with hard backs and curved corners. They need to be books, proper books, not spiral pads. Books, always. I trawl for the best ones. Moleskines are a favourite, the black ones with thick watercolour paper. And I’m currently trying Pith and Arteza, though the latter is unreliable with supplies. I need lots. I like the restrictions they pose on the size and composition of drawing. All that possibility for white space.

I remember the first time I came upon the National Gallery’s collection of Turner’s sketchbooks. They were in a cabinet, under glass, obviously, but opened up. It was the intimacy of them – the curled edges, the fraying ribbons, the ragged covers, the spots of paint, the pencil marks begun but unfinished, the flooding of colour onto the next page, the rush of thought, the thrill of ideas, of composition, tried and failed – they were glorious. Are glorious. Then I came upon Hockney’s, not in the flesh, sadly but courtesy of the internet. What a joy. There’s even a video of him turning the pages. If he begins a drawing and can’t finish it, or is distracted, he leaves the marks alone and turns the page. And there they are left, and just as important as the successes. Marks on a white page (off-white is preferred – that glaring blue-white of cheap paper is akin to mass-produced cotton – let it be tinged with yellow, with cream like the true Egyptian variety) with all that room to breathe, just perfect. And it’s his confidence, the way he uses the shape of the book, the layout, the opening and the closing to frame his responses, some quick, some more laboured. You would never separate them from the other pages, the binding. They belong to the containment.

When I first saw them I was almost sick with awe. What’s the point? I thought. Now, I see more clearly. Learn from them. Learn.

There’s been a gap. A drawing gap, that is. Well, not completely. I went away and before going had to finish 3 articles, so my drawing practice, sadly had to be put aside. It hurts when I have to do that. I fear the loss of it. So I drew as I travelled, in motorway services, petrol stops and then when we got there.

It wasn’t the same. I try to ask less of myself when on holiday by taking just one book, only a small one, and a few pens. And on my return I was finishing off my resubmission for funding, so again the thing I long to do had to wait. And now that it has gone I am ready.

Yesterday I drew a cherry picker that has been parked at the harbour for over a week now. I’ve been itching to capture it, though my fingers froze in the doing of it. I shall return today. I hope it is still there. I love that urgency. The rest of my life is a slow one. Nevertheless, my confidence is not high, it’s been too long. But from tomorrow I’ve three days. Three days of intensive paying attention. Wish me luck.