Category Archives: Inspirations

Lovely imperfect paper.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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The picture above is the latest of my attempts at finding some different and interesting compositions around the sidecar outfit theme. This is very much a sketch rather than a thinly veiled shot at a finished piece. The density of the line work has ended up covering a tangled nest of construction and guide lines and the wonder of modern technology has enabled me to virtually obliterate the swathes of Tippex correction fluid useed in the early stages. This more loose approach to a drawing is really working its way into my system to the point where they hold as much enjoyment as the more tight and precise drawings I have previously shown you. This one is again done on heavy weight lining paper, a habit that is proving hard to break for want of finding a good substitute.

 

Some time ago a friend pointed out, quite rightly, that this paper is not acid free. This has its upsides as well as its downsides. Not being acid free means, as far as I know, that the paper will age badly, yellowing and discolouring over time, and finally disintegrating into a pile of dust after a decade or three. Not good if you want your work to survive many years of ownership and admiration. If you’re worried about preserving the image rather than an original work, then I suppose it could be scanned and printed out using the Giclee process or similar, to provide with something that will last in perpetuity.

 

The upsides to using this paper, at least as far as I’m concerned right now, are twofold. Firstly, as I’ve said before, it possesses a surface unlike anything else. It has a course almost gritty nature to it which takes ink from the pen in a subtle way. One can employ a lightness of touch so that the pen is almost skating over the surface to leave very light, whispy lines, and then one can really build up the image by working the surface quite hard. It seems to be able to take no end of punishment from the tip of a ball point. A bonus feature is that you can apply light washes to loose sheets without suffering too much warp and distortion.

 

The second reason I like this paper is perhaps a bit more idiosyncratic and concerns the idea of patina. For as long as I can remember I have found the idea of objects gaining patina through their use a very appealing one. During years spent designing products the notion of how ones ownership effects the physical nature of a product over time always interested me. I found it fascinating, particularly from the point of view of someone living in what is essentially a disposable age. The way that a paint finish would rub off the corners, how once bright metals would dull through repeated handling, and how the accumulation of myriad tiny scratches and dents imbued a product with a kind of documented history. All lovely stuff. Yes, there is a mild sentimentality running through all this but, it does not purely account for my appreciation of a well used tool or favourite pair of old motorcycling gloves. So the idea that this paper will age disgracefully, take on unforeseen hues because of sunlight or pollutants in the air, and get visibly old is very appealing. Why can’t a picture show its age?

The image above shows the drawing at an early stage. Over time it kind of faded into view. I quite like the idea that it could fade out of view too.

 

Sidecars, an unexpected delight.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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Sidecar No.1

Those of you who have been visiting the blog over the last few weeks and months will have heard me mention on more than one occasion that it’s a bit of a habit to be working on more than one thing at a time. You will also be familiar with my list keeping that helps to organise the workflow and assist in prioritising the order in which things happen. You would think, perhaps rightly, that these two things would conspire to keep the imagination fully fueled from now until some point in the distant future, and generally you would be correct. But sometimes a proverbial “curve ball” comes in from nowhere and changes the game plan completely.

 

On this occasion the disruptive little agent of change came calling whilst sat on a bench in a local park. I was deep into the Cafe Racer series and pretty sure what I was going to be doing next. It wasn’t a particularly nice day to be lost in a reverie on a park bench but that moment of free thinking just threw this word at me: Sidecars. I reached for my trusty A6 Moleskine notebook and made two very quick sketches which are shown below. No notes were made, just these two little scamps.

Back in the studio, pen hit lining paper with a rare intensity and within a very short space of time I had the bare bones of a much larger drawing, the big one at the top of this page. It’s rare to find myself able to work this fast, or this accurately, straight to paper. But knowing these moments don’t always come voluntarily lends them an exciting urgency which is best served by going with it for as long as it lasts. The drawing was “finished” the following morning, in the sense that it had reached the point where adding any more would have spoiled it.

 

It’s fantastic when this kind of thing happens. It’s so easy to get sucked into a situation where a schedule that you’ve created in an effort to ease any anxiety about what to do next becomes constraining, is actively removing flexibility from your working. It’s a psychological thing as much as a practical one obviously, and you’re never really tied to your plan, but it’s there to give you purpose. The unexpected game changers are great because if you’re open enough to engage them when they occur, you quickly realise that as important as it is to have a plan, it’s equally important to have the courage  and ability to change that plan and not be a prisoner of it.

 

Go with the flow, and see where it takes you………….

 

 

Cafe Racer No.6 progress.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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Cafe Racer No.6

It seems that one only has to blink and time appears to have rushed past.Things have been a bit quiet on the Soulcraftcandy front these last couple of weeks as a hefty chunk of freelance work has done it’s best to sap the creative batteries. It has always been a challenge to keep focus on the art, and the blog, during periods of intense work. It remains to be mastered.

Cafe Racer No.6 b

But as you can see, things don’t stop completely, and progress is being made on the final drawing in this initial series of Cafe Racers. With a couple of free days ahead it should be complete soon. Psychologically speaking it will be an important moment to reach the end of this set. It will signal the completion of my first self-initiated “project”, and a time to reflect on progress and cast my mind towards what to do next.

A hint of where things go from here might be contained in this other sketch which I’m sharing with you on todays post. This is another relatively quick drawing done directly onto heavy weight lining paper. You will note that I made a right old mess of the front wheel. The freehand ellipse remains a tricky fish to land, but at the time it didn’t concern me enough to want to stop the drawing mid way and start again. The pleasure derived from doing these quick drawings, and exploring the view and texture, is more than sufficient to motivate the desire to complete them. There is nothing wrong with a flawed drawing, they are interpretive in nature anyway, and mistakes are always things that we learn from, be they major or minor.

 

It was not included in the main series as I’d already selected the group of six but, it does join a group of other drawings which I hope will inspire some experimentation with techniques and media that will follow on from here.