Category Archives: Scribbles

Perseverance rewarded.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
Reply

Street Racing No.2

You don’t have to look far across the walls of the studio here, or delve too far into one of the sketchbooks lying about, to find a list. Lists of drawings to do, subject areas to take a closer look at, details to get images of and compositions to work up into something meaningful. Lots of lists and so always seemingly masses to do. Visiting a list at the end of a project hopefully kick starts the creative muscle at a time when all it really wants to do is take a break.

 

The latest visit has yielded the above drawing which has been sitting rather unloved in a large pad that spends most of its time being moved around to make room for other things. Such is the way of small rooms and large flat things. Anyway, it has sat there patiently waiting for its moment of glory, inclusion in a post in it’s final form. It’s called Street Racing No.2, following on from a previous drawing, done in a style I rather casually refer to as scribbling. It needed finishing off. Drawn pretty much directly onto the page over a very vague pencil layout, this technique involves a very light touch with the pen, working around the image in a very sketchy and indeterminate way.  It builds the picture very slowly and is without a doubt very time consuming. This is one of those methods that really tests your resolve to finish the piece, to persevere and get to the end knowing you’ve chosen this path yourself. Yes I know this is a relatively small drawing, but it does provide an insight into what working at a much larger scale involves in terms of focus and momentum.

 

Perhaps that’s why I haven’t undertaken any more of these recently. This one is spread across a sheet of A2 paper in landscape format. This is a lovely scale for a drawing but brings with it a firm refusal to fit onto the scanner bed in any orientation, even breaking it into sections. Hence this view is a bit lacking in some of the finer detail as I had to shoot it with the camera and fiddle about quite a lot in Photoshop.

 

So that’s another item to cross off one of the lists, but it’s already prompted the addition of another item on another; do something about a lighting set up to enable better photos of larger pieces, or get a bigger scanner……..

 

Less is more.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
Reply

Cafe Racer No.2

Hot off the scanner today is the second completed drawing from the Cafe Racer series. After much humming and hawing over how to finish it off, it seemed most appropriate to mirror the rather stripped down nature of the bike itself with a minimal approach to context. So a simple single line, curving to instill a light sense of speed and motion, got put in under the main image. Attempting to satisfy the persistent and sometimes nagging feeling that a fuller background should be present, I merely ended up filling the waste basket with tracing paper. In some instances, less is more, and certainly in this case it works best. Needless to say I’m more than happy with the outcome.

 

The first drawing of the series, which featured here a couple of posts ago is now framed, submitted and waiting to be hung in a local open art show here in Ealing. For successful submission it needed a title, and is now called “Full Throttle” which seemed to fit nicely. Enquiring of the gallery staff I learned that they were expecting up to perhaps 300 submissions. A healthy number in anyones book, and indicative of what a creative community we have here in the borough. It will be fascinating to attend the private view tomorrow night and meet some of the other artists. Very exciting, this is the first time I’ve ever shown a drawing and who knows, somebody might take enough of a shine to it to part with some money.

 

For anyone who might be interested in coming along and having a look, the exhibition runs until the 21st April and can be found at the Walpole gallery which is situated in Walpole Park just by Ealing Broadway, West London. And it’s free to enter.

 

The remaining drawings in the series are progressing well. My initial selection of sketches to work up seems to be constantly changing. Another idea popped up the other day during a free sketching session during a lunch break, always handy to have a pad and pen nearby, and is shown below. It’s an apparently simple view though I’m looking forward to getting to grips with it, and it should provide a great opportunity to work on my techniques for faces and clothing which are still proving difficult to master.

 

What lies behind.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
1

Catch me if you can.

Back in early January, post No. 50 featured the finished version of the first of what have become known as the “Scribble” drawings. It depicted two guys vying for the lead in an impromptu street race somewhere out in the middle of nowhere on an empty road.

Shortly after completing that one, work commenced on a second drawing along the same lines. Working over a very loosely constructed pencil layout, the drawing is built up using light wobbly pen strokes. Features and details develop slowly and grow by passing over them many times. It’s a slow process but it allows me to balance the tones across the drawing as it progresses, continuously working around the drawing rather than concentrating one one specific area at a time.

Relative to other techniques it’s quite labour intensive but, this is offset by the “feel” the drawing adopts as it grows. You’ll notice from these detail shots taken with the camera, the whole thing’s on A2 so won’t fit in the scanner, even in sections, that there is no background yet. I’ll admit it’s an area I’m still having difficulty with but, it is becoming clearer to me why this is and how to deal with it.

This drawing has actually had more than a couple of backgrounds pencilled in, mainly in the form of loose townscapes, but all have been ended up being erased. Why? Well, mainly because they all detracted from the central focus of the drawing too much. They created a marked change in perception, from being a picture of two guys racing to a picture containing two guys racing. It’s a subtle difference but an important one as it’s all about where your eye wants to dwell.

There is a second challenge for me here too, and that is managing to render the background in the same style as the main part of the drawing. Easier said than done, the more that lies behind the core of the image, the harder it is to make it recessive so the two bikers don’t get lost in a sea of loosely filled in street details. It’s also hard to compliment the comedy of the two racers without detracting from them too much.

Currently I’m erring towards a simple approach tried out on a couple of previous drawings, a simple horizon which holds a small collection of references, small buildings etc, that help “place” the main subject but don’t crowd it out. This might sound like a bit of a cop out, but it’s not a thinly veiled excuse for avoiding extra work, more a considered effort to provide context and preserve the impact of the core of the drawing.

All things being equal, the finished version should be up here soon.