I made a long journey over these last few days and my drawing was, inevitably, restricted to the faces and bodies that shared those brief pitstops at motorways services with me. They are bleak places, particularly in the early mornings. It takes a while for me to warm up, intellectually as well as physically, and my seeing and responding is slow. And everyone is mostly on the move, rushing here and there, takeaway coffee in hand. There is little communing, especially in those wee small hours. Some faces (and bodies) caught me and I tried to draw them – such as the elderly woman yesterday, sitting, her knees opened-wide (she wore a long skirt), her mask under her chin, reading a magazine and eating a breadstick (which took her some while to open).
Or the girl in dungarees, sitting rather awkwardly on a wooden chair her left leg crossed over the right. Or the other elderly lady, who, after shouting down her mobile phone at someone or other, sat, demurely behind her handbag listening amiably (and silently) to her friend.
I watched people order, talk, text, phone and eat. Like the man with the huge beard wearing lycra leggings under shorts who, albeit imperceptibly, jerked his groin while he read texts, or the other man in a hat who ate his burger like a ravenous animal. The people I drew reflected the no man’s land-ness of such places (where conventions & etiquette appear disregarded), finding comfort in the food and the caffeine, with some staring into space while they waited (like the couple who didn’t say one word to each other for a whole hour), while others seemed to forget the banality and engaged in heated conversation, such as the two men clearly discussing ‘business’. ‘He’s a good bloke,’ said one, ‘really down to earth.’
The quality of the drawing is, understandably, less satisfying to me on such occasions – and I really need to resolve the issue of favouring a thinner, smoother paper for, sketching quickly (and hungrily), I end up doubling up and they show through. Is it about the end result or the act of doing? Or both, perhaps?
