I sense some themes coming to the surface.

 July 6th at Extreme Poses with Shelley our muse:

I believe these compositions of selected parts from five 5 minute poses are becoming a clearly identifiable outcome, having an integrity and presenting to the beholder a challenge to search in order to comprehend them.

The theme here is one of a compositional diagonal.

Jenny Saville provoked beholders to examine attitudes to the female body by displaying the body as hanging carcases in a butchers shop. Does this image relate to her intention? Certainly not my intention in any way. Didn't cross my mind until now.

So much of Extreme Poses is about the suspension of the traditional, classical, atelia approach to drawing the human body. My theme here could be identified as how strap and anatomy co-exist.

I'm in my element here. I could draw the whole pose un-deconstructed. But at the scale I engage with the body and the anatomy I would need a whole wall. So I am almost dividing the pose into horizontal sections and bringing them together, moving them up or down, overlapping them, superimposing them, colliding them. I am including all the parts which excite.

Performing with both hands

We've just arrived home after after attending a performance by one of the worlds leading harpists at the Caerleon Festival in Gwent in South East Wales. Catrin Finch who was born near Aberaeron over in the west of Wales talked through her life with the harp from the age of five thro' to her appointment by Charles Prince of Wales as the Court Musician and now working with so many of the worlds leading musicians.

I was sitting about three metres from her, being totally captivated by her playing, and closely engaged with viewing her hands and fingers as both hands created the most amazing sounds. After about fifteen minutes or so I began to realise I was watching a two handed performance. I have been in the presence of musicians on many occasions, but have never previously thought about how they employed their hands. I can't think of a musician who plays with one hand only. Some employ their two hands in different ways, e.g. playing a guitar. Some equally, e.g. as with a piano (I assume I am correct in making this distinction). 

I am known as '2pencilbob' because for the past ten or so years in my life-drawing I use both hands. I have researched two-handed activities and tasks, read papers on left-brain right-brain relationship, and searched for parallels in diverse disciplines. I came across only one artist who draws with both hands simultaneously, and she lives in Santiago, Chile and exhibits in Los Angeles and New York, but she was not particularly interested in pursuing with me the process we both engaged in.

So, this evening, apart from the satisfaction of enjoying Catrin Finch's playing, I came away with the realisation that I had been researching in the wrong places. It is not discovering other artists who perform with both hands who are going to be able to help me understand my own process and technique ('cause there don't seem to be any) but I need to look at musicians (I did spend many hours, years ago, reading up the research into machine operators, but it emphasised aspects of health and safety and it become very boring and I concluded irrelevant to my art). 

So watch this space! Drawing with both hands is now natural to me. My right had remains the dominant. Mark making is different from each. As Paul Fowler said some years back after I had been using both hands for some time, "Bob, the mark-making by your left hand is more lyrical". I believe this is still the case. After I have searched the form on the paper with both hands it is my right hand which goes in to confirm the final line.