A review of my work to date

To me drawing was always something other people did - some people could and some people couldn't. I was in the latter camp. In fact I didn't start drawing until just over three years ago as a means to supplement some exploratory collage experiments. Then it was maybe more tracing than my own work but it was a catalyst for sure.

What I now realise more clearly than ever is that drawing is about looking, about attention, about awareness. It's also about iteration, perhaps the naturals get it right first time but for me it's become a practice of looking, mark making, correction, mark making again - repeated until the drawing in front of me more clearly represents what I have focussed my intention and attention to. I was practicing life drawing a lot but never progressed. I never stopped to correct at any time. I think I felt the more I drew, the better I would get naturally. I no longer feel that. I now know that for me, it is better to correct course as I go.

Drawing isn't just pen on paper either. The medium we choose plays an important part and only by spending time with each medium to you get to know it's characteristics, it's limitations and their ability to fit into your own working practice. Throughout I have been drawn to look at the work of others and, at times, to trace their lineage to see who influenced them and how they have developed it further. For me, it became quite clear that line and colour were recurring themes in others work that I enjoyed visually. Not exclusively, but for work that really drew me in, it was those two simple things.

Something that has hung over from my photography days is the double guessing. Sometimes work I make will be something I really like and then I start considering if others would like it, how it sits against the work of my chosen peers, would others hang in on their walls. These, I feel, are all strong criteria but I also feel they hamper me through overthinking. I am not sure yet whether this line of questioning has ever time helped progress or hinder my exploration.

What I have seen, and felt, as I look back over the last 11 months is an increased confidence in my drawing and that is really really encouraging and that is to do with more time spent both observing and mark making but also the realisation it doesn't have to come out of the pencil fully formed, I am allowed to correct and alter as I go.

Looking over all of the work, I don't feel yet as if I have a voice yet but I do feel as if I am learning the components of the language which will allow me to develop my own voice.

Taking at the drawings specifically, I recently found out that Adobe Bridge is free so I used it to search through all my folders and review all of the images of drawings from this year. I put all my selections into a folder of their own and then created a 'contact sheet' of 4 x A6 images per A4 sheet and printed them out. In total there were 47 selects that were a mixture of images I liked and images that I felt were lacking in some way.

So here's the upside to doing this so late in the process. As soon as I started reviewing the work, a thought I had already was confirmed. This wouldn't have maybe happened if I had done it first.

The thought was that I wasn't happy with the colour pencil work I was doing. I liked the colour pencils but it was hard to create the definition I wanted as there is only so deep you can go tonally with them. I realised I was missing the pen line work. I think if I had incorporated that with the colour pencil, I would have had stronger drawings. My pen / pencil only drawings are amongst my favourites as there is an energy to them that I feel is missing in any other way I am working. I don't quite know how else to describe it. Looking back at some of my favourite artists, they work in the same way, line and colour. I just don't know why I didn't see this before. But actually I think I did. But I felt I wasn't doing it 'properly' if I had to rely on line work and maybe I still feel that way a little. These 'rules' get in my head and I find it hard to shake them. I feel this is something within my personality as I did it within photography too and I feel it really stifled my work then as it is doing now. I am always trying to do it 'right'.