Twenty five years ago I took a few photos of my firstborn’s hand on my hand. Since then I’ve made drawings from the least blurry pictures, and transferred one of those to a little piece of lino. Sketches and lino blocks go missing during house moves and home improvement projects.
Finally, after years of dithering, I have cut enough of this lino to make a test print. It might benefit from more little dots in the background and a different colour ink but that’s for another day.
This began as a sketch for a black and white linocut a few years ago. Various interruptions later, it’s been coloured with pencils, biros and watercolour crayons. Not finished yet…
A bit of urban sketching, except it’s drawn from a photo I took on a sunnier day last week.
I wonder if others see an attractive corner shop, or maybe a cafe. It might be that people like me, who cannot see the ‘unique’ history of the town I live in, can only see derelict buildings here. Optimists will see the potential for improvement.
This building should be a time travel portal, or at least a gateway to another dimension.
Linocut, 7 x 15cm approx. After the test print I noticed she has a nosebleed. Maybe this is a long lost part of that Lincolnshire folk tale about roses drinking blood.
I enjoyed cutting a little raincloud lino block. For once, patchy inking helped the image to shine!
Every year this poor pot loses another coil. A bit of his ear has gone.
Linocut on Japanese paper, 12 x 12 cm.
Full cold moon; a time when we’re naturally accelerated, energy is flowing and things will naturally come to a conclusion. Time to consider that ridiculous ten year project which we can now let go of.
Today’s full moon coincides with a general election. There was a double rainbow in the sky when I went out to vote.
Drawing at Art College. Mostly mark-making, none of that precise decorative nonsense.
There was an incident one lunchtime when I was drawing a sewing pattern on the back of an old print. My drawing tutor looked at the lines on the paper and said: “This could be better!”.
I explained it would be a shape to chalk around. It had an arrow to indicate the direction of fabric grain and various clues for dart position and seam allowance. Perfect!
He furrowed his brow and continued to insist that the drawing needed more depth, more information for the viewer. In that moment I felt the full weight of the futility of art theory. A printmaking tutor arrived. He rescued the situation by explaining the difference between functional drawing and Fine Art Drawing in a few words. I still wish we had drawn an infographic for clarity.
Life drawing every Monday. The life drawing room could be a place to hide, according to some painters. Presumably landscape drawing offers a similar chance to escape from a stuffy studio environment(?).
We began with quick exercises to loosen the wrists, usually the model moved around or through a fixed structure. Some models practiced yoga while we drew their repetitive movements.
I have spent time in some incredibly dull life rooms, which involved drawing a person standing still in a pastel coloured room. Ideally, there is good light on the subject, who has taken an interesting pose.
Ideally, the work made during the day bears some resemblance to a human form. It’s easy to spot errors because the drawn person appears unable to function with those spindly limbs or crooked neck. Drawing a naked human means there are no useful clothing folds to mask a dodgy angle.
As an Art student, listening to irrelevant waffle, I often wondered:
Is there any other subject that can be taught by people who possess very little relevant skill?
Test printing some little postcards. Were we promised unicorns as part of the Brexit outcome? Nobody can remember…
berry daines 