Andrew: July 4th

Penny: July 1st

latest fineliner drawings

Two months away, so out with the fine-liners

After my operation I had a rest from life-drawing and when I returned, for some reason, I elected to take with me only a box of fine-liner pens.

More of Clare: and coming together in a new way.

I've frequently considered, and with full support from Paul Fowler at Extreme Poses, that I seem to be able to recognise with each set of drawings from a session an evolutionary change in some aspect, which to the 'untrained' eye may often go unrecognised. Often, that change has occurred comes as a surprise, but more than often the nature of the change, or the development, or the evolution, or the innovation (call it what you will) is the main surprise.

I've also talked in the past of how I may be helping to initiate change within myself by spending time reviewing my drawings and thinking about them in relation to the drawings of others. In this self analytical activity I often generate each time a different vocabulary to try to describe my work. This process of almost categorising what has taken place seems to draw a line in my mind around the particular emphasis, characteristic or phenomena. What then happens, quite unconsciously, is that I use what I have closed the door on as a base or springboard for the next step in my journey. I emphasis the unconscious aspect of this move because as I have said on a number of times recently 'I do not any longer go into a life-drawing session with a plan'. So what, if anything, guides me is that which is stored within the depths of my sub-conscious.

The above four drawings are of the model Clare at Extreme Poses in Stroud on April 25th 2019.

In essence in each one I bring together, overlap, superimpose those parts which fascinate me. Nothing new here then. I have been doing this consciously, and exploring and experimenting with its implications and outcomes, for a long time now. The one aspect which is consistent within these four compositions is the inclusion of the whole pose. And I wanted to do this. I had a sense that for far too long now I have been totally fascinated with what happens when one just brings parts together to generate a new whole, and with this a developing frustration that the beauty of the whole pose and any attractive gestural form is not engaged with. 

So, I am considering that within these four drawings we see much more than an incremental step. I feel a 'breakthrough day'. I can probably find examples of this in this archive blog, but I feel there appears to be a clarity of intent not previously acknowledged by me.

Paul agreed that what was happening was something new. Towards the end of the morning we sat and talked for ten minutes or so. I said that I thought what is happening is that I am thinking about 'an intention' which I described as:

• two scales
• the whole gesture, and
• selected significant parts

but, the way these come together surprised.

I said that I did not 'consciously' consider my mark-making - I just drew!

So, what was I thinking about during the 30 minutes of each pose?

• her body: making the most of it (her pose, the gesture, her anatomical characteristic(s)
• the composition - within the edges of the paper (whether as a complete form within the space of the paper, as in the 3rd drawing, or one being deliberately cropped or moving into the space beyond the edges of the paper)

and possibly

• how to express, best, the dialogue between me and Clare's body, from my perception

So, yes, I am making/constructing a 'composition' on the paper. And, I recall, that I did, on this morning consciously think about the composition - i.e. how it sits within the rectangle of the paper.

An additional pre-occupation and one which has started to emerge recently is of placing one drawing on top of another. This is dealing with the quality of 'transparency' which has been around with me for some months now and is a characteristic of my work and frequently mentioned. But here I believe (and again this is something I  am being conscious of, therefor thinking about) I am trying to discover the implications and any problems which may arise by drawing one thing on top of another. How much does one have to think about it? Does one have to think about it whilst doing it? Can two or three parts be superimposed without considering their juxtapositioning and any confusion or clarity issues which may arise. In my case any difficulty is easy to handle as I tend to only superimpose two or three parts on an A1 paper. My fascination with Francis Picabia has revealed that he superimposed up to eight drawings at a number of different scales on big canvases, often bringing in parts of animals and architectural features intertwined with whole poses and anatomical parts. My 30 minute poses have so far restricted my engagement with this fascinating issue. Is this just an aspect of my cubism or something quite separate from it? The simple answer is that it is just the way my life-drawing is changing, and perhaps I should stop putting a name to what I do. 

A final observation. The medium: graphite pencils seem to hold such variety of weight of line - this allows an expression of a) initial exploratory outline, thro' to b) confident agreed emphasis.

You see what is not there.........yet you also see it from different viewpoints simultaneously.

Three weeks since my last life-drawing and perhaps a self-imposed time for reflection. Not that I've consciously reviewed my art and my involvement in drawing the body. But I'm sure this will have taken place. I will know in the morning when I go over to Paul Fowler's Extreme Poses for five 30 minute entries into my life-drawing world.
But during this break I did come across a fascinating concept whilst reading a review by Jonathan Ree of 'Being And Nothingness: An Essay in Phenomenology And Ontology' by Jean-Paul Sartre, translated by Sarah Richmond. published in the London Review of Books, April 18th 2019.

"Imagine for instance that you see a woman (lying on the grass under a tree). You may think that your experience is simply an effect of light bouncing off the woman (the grass and the tree), impinging on your retina and triggering a chain of events in your optic nerve and your brain. But think again. Your awareness involves not only what is taking place in front of you, but also what is not: that the figure is neither a man nor a child, and not sitting or standing, (that the surface is not paved, that the tree is no flimsy sapling). The world, in other words, is constituted by what is absent as well as what is present, and these absences depend on the expectations you bring to it rather than how it is in itself."

So tomorrow I may bring into my process what is not there.



I also came across for the first time Jenny Saville's series of works entitled 'Ancestors' at Gagosian. I have been inspired by her art for many years but particularly after experiencing at first hand her exhibition at Oxford Modern Art some years ago. These latest works are extraordinarily provoking and for me screamed out thoughts of Bacon and Picasso and Surrealism as I searched through her imagery on my screen. But I also found in her text a few words which echoed what I have been attempting to describe about my own drawing.

"I'm trying to see if its possible to hold onto that moment of perception, or have several moments coexist ...……… like looking at a memory."

"If I draw through previous bodily forms in an arbitrary or contradictory way, unexpected forms emerge from the nature of the drawing and it gives a visual shock"

a simplified cubism emerging?

A simplified cubism: I'm not referring to the first two drawings. These are representative of my old school. The first, a whole pose attempting to quickly respond to 'the gesture', the twist of the body, and the spatial suspension. Includes three mark-making tools, i.e. fine-liner pen, graphite pencil and charcoal. Executed with both hands operating simultaneously. The second merely a catalogue of hand and feet holding on or supported by the straps. Can you sense my lack of enthusiasm for these?

Sorry! I appear to have deleted the second drawing. Will add it later.

But in these next three I am sensing a continuation in the evolutionary path of my engagement with my cubism, which I have extensively talked about in recent postings. In these I seem to recall (and it was only the day before yesterday that I was over at Paul Fowler's 'Extreme Poses in Stroud drawing the wonderful Katie) that I was consciously responding to her within the parameter of employing only two scales. My Picabia type responses had on occasions employed multiple scales of different parts and including multiple perspectives. Yet here the two scaled drawings in each composition can be clearly identified.

I am particularly enjoy the middle one. It appears that I have simply exaggerated by bringing forward her left leg and foot supported by the plinth. This went in first as I was immediately attracted to it as it advanced toward me just above my eye level and her toes, curling over the edge of the plinth, just over one metre away from my seated viewpoint. So that was the first ten minutes of the 30 minute pose. I then felt I wanted to engage with the perspective of the rest of the pose and particularly her right arm and face as it leant away into the distant space beyond. This then became another drawing, having its own and different plinth line. I recall having no expectation or no conscious thought about how these two drawings, at different scales, would actually meet together and what the eventual detailed juxtapositioning and outcome would be. There is no conscious designing of the composition. In fact I deliberately avoid this and often eagerly await the act of standing back (when the 30 minutes are up) to experience what has emerged on the paper.

It seems the employment of my two-scales approach resulted in the plinth being drawn twice, and this outcome has enforced my understanding that when one views a pose the whole is difficult to embrace in one go, and as the eye travels around the pose and looks more closely at each part and begins to really see each part then within this emerging three-dimensional perceptual structure different perspectives, different scales, and different viewpoints operate. I suppose it is stating the obvious, but I'm not simply sitting or standing beside my easel viewing the pose and thinking about this. The actions of exploratory mark-making on and within the space of the paper are fundamental to the emerging perceptual process of each sitting. My researches have suggested I am describing here the experience of and entry into the 4th-dimension (also see previous postings on this).  If this is the case then my controlled use of just two scales has clarified this for me and in itself is a component of my cubism.