Winter, 3.

so,

just enough time before scooting for easter to make another post here, the third batch of winter drawings. bored of these yet? thought so. anyway- again, selected from a big old pile, this time by both me AND emma. some favourites, some more representational. directional. again, some sketchier than others, some more finished.

but enough of my pointless talk.





20.

more dying sharpie, used deliberately for effect rather than a fresh pen. this was another image i'd been carrying around in my head and for once managed to execute it almost exactly as i saw it. i like this one a lot. . .



















21.

. . . this meanwhile is one of emma's picks. there's nothing to it and i never really reflected on it as anything other than a slightly goofy doodle. . .



















22-25.

various pencil drawings. 22 & 23 are emm's picks, the other two are mine. 22 was a deliberate attempt to draw emma in something OTHER than that damn cardigan that although synonymous with her (to me at least) i'd gotten into the habit of just automatically drawing, in spite of the fact she scarcely wears the thing anymore. 23 leans towards being more stylised. 24 & 25 meanwhile are favourites of mine, and depictions of emma in 2002, and 2009 respectively. 24 i'm especially fond of.




















































26.

this one's very sketchy but i love it probably more than anything more 'finished' here. it was sketched during a reflective period shortly before christmas, thinking about the couple of months that had led to that point, and this was what came out. the title, 'hymn' just seemed fitting somehow. . .



















27.

this by contrast is probably the most intricate, finnicky, finished drawing of all of these 'winter' drawings, done around the same time as 26 (and also, 19) and featuring a partick glasgow skyline, and one of the best drawings of emma i've ever done, as well as certainly the most realistic looking wings i've ever drawn - as opposed to very stylised flat shapes. detail. lots of detail. i love this. we both love this.



















28.

by contrast, this is that more stylised execution again. albeit in differing amounts, lending the possibility the figure is standing in front of a drawing of a building rather than a building itself. the bird on his shoulder is halfway there, but wouldn't look nearly as good done realistically. she's a small quirk, but my favourite part of this image.



















29.

'?'
















. . . emma picked this one- you can tell. make of it what you will. . .

and that's all for now.

next time, something completely different. . .

Winter, 2.

Alrighty then,

Much delayed follow up to that last post, mostly procrastination on my part and the usual headaches, literal and otherwise.

Again, these are a mixed bunch. Selections from the big pile - Some sketches, some little more than doodles and others more refined than a lot of the preceding stuff I'd been churning out. Variations on repeated themes and images, further attempts to incorporate more of a background as well as full figures into images. Again, some of these images show up in later drawings and at least one painting, more refined. Those you'll see, in time. . .

You can view these as a continuation of a period where I was back enjoying the simple process of sitting and drawing without ever getting critical about what I was doing. Just taking my time, trying things, seeing what I could come up with. . .



9-11.

Like #5 & #6, these are a rough ink drawing that serves as kind of a try-out or rough for - i this case - two pencil drawings, variations of the same poses and composition, though both feel very different, emotionally speaking. These are two of four or five, incidentally. This was an image that I was a little obsessed with capturing in JUST the right way, and these two drawings are essentially my favourites of the bunch.







































12 & 13.

Again, same concept - Pen drawing and then a more refined second drawing, in this case done in a mix of pen and pencil. While still fairly rough, as with #10 & #11, I love the resulting image, the composition, the feel of it. It says what I want it to say which no amount of finnickiness ever could.




























14.

There's almost nothing to this sketch, but I love it. Real indie comic book splash-page composition.


















15.

Again, there's pretty much nothing to this small doodle. And it is little more than a doodle. But again, I love it. A more polished, finished painted version of this composition I'll post at a later date.
















16.

Done around the same time as #15, again there's very little to this one. It was just an idea, an image I had in my head I wanted to get down on paper. I like this. It's not great, but it looks unlike anything else I've drawn and has a certain dynamism to it that I find appealing.
















17.

Again - imperfect, but I love this image, and it's one I'd had in my head for a long, long time but never put down on paper before this, but which I went on to do more versions of. Yes it's a little goofy, and the birds are stylised rather than realistic, but. . . *shrug*
















18.

Another Sharpie begins its slow death with this one, which I utilised by using the smudgey inklessness to express texture, using a new pen on parts like the coat to make them stand out. This, again, is an image that spawned variation after variation but again, was me pushing myself to include architecture, perspective and whole figures. well, at least ONE. I'm extremely fond of this one, particularly the depiction of Emm which I think is one of the best I've done of her.
















19.

And #18 could be said to have spawned this drawing, another favourite of mine. I love this. Again, it's not perfect but I care very little about perfection anymore.

Emm, Edinburgh, Forbidden Planet - a very full drawing with a background, foreground and even stuff in the middle. Architecture, at least one full figure - shadowy or not - This was sort of a breakthrough. The beginnings of one, at least. Through which much of my long lost confidence started to slowly rebuild itself.

None of which would have happened without all that had happened in the weeks before, I think. I don't know. . .















. . . More next time.

Winter, 1.

So,

November into December.

To some degree these are more of the same, in other ways some of what I did when things had cooled down a bit was a step back. Not a big step forward, but just doing - and the desire to do - pieces that were a little less intense and demanding. Understandably.

This first selection is mostly random. While not churning out pieces as I'd been doing, I was still producing more than I had been and being a lot less finnicky. And yes the drawings are a lot less finished looking than my 'usual' work, but again, the idea of sitting spending hours on finnicky, precise drawings had lost its appeal.

The pen would to some extent a backseat in favour of pencil by the middle of December, by which point it had taken on a slightly different role. . .





1.

The bird mask minus its owner. I wanted to draw just this as a way of separating the two, that and to try and do something resembling a design of the mask itself because it's always been a bit vague and amorphous, and generally been drawn / painted in profile. I like this.



















2-4.

Three Emma drawings of slightly differing style and levels of realism that pretty much speak for themselves. Straightforward with no underlying bleak story. Just drawings.









































5.

This one's REALLY sketchy. Mostly I was approaching transferring a vague image I had in my head to paper in a different, more relaxed approach than trying to commit it to the white in very deliberate lines and found that this way came a lot more naturally. While not precisely as I was visualising what I wanted to put on paper, it's a close approximation. And it didn't end with me getting frustrated and scrunching up numerous attempts. . . Mostly with this, I was just determined to have full figures in a drawing. Instead of my old, over-cropped stuff. And again, arhitecture, no matter how vague. . .



















6 & 7.

Now then. Here's where things took a bit of a turn, which sort of speaks for itself - Sharpie drawing as preparatory study. This out of the blue became a 'thing', a habit which led to the production of some great drawings I really love, minus the stress of being finnicky because I'd bashed out the basic concepts first. Admittedly, not the original plan but just something that. . . happened, pottering around, drawing.

And again, full figures, something I've avoided for years. And years. Oh, and years.

The pencil piece itself I like and don't in equal measures, but that's just me doing what I do best - Being my own worst critic.






























8.

Simple. Again with these, no explanation necessary. I was just getting back to enjoying drawing again, without it being about thrashing emotions out of my system. I think it probably shows.















9.

One of my favourites from that period of late November into December. There's nothing to this but I love it. Sharpie and pitt pen for the thinner lines. I couldn't have done something like this in pencil. It wouldn't have 'felt' as this one does. if that makes any sense at all. . .

And that's all for today.

Big, 1.

So.

We're onto November into December now in this 'Catch Up' summary drawn over however many entries, and I'll do the same again rather than bombarding you eyes with a gajillion images at once.

But before I get too submerged in another x-number of entries of drawings, I thought I'd post something painted to break things up a little. There's quite a bit of painting to post, but I think thi, an soe of the others I'll slot in between the remaining work from 2009 I have to post, fit a little better than any of the more 'realised' full colour stuff.

This one is. . . Kind of an anomally. And huge, those figures are life-sized. On paper. I had started it months before, abandoned it, worked over it, disiked it, repainted parts, abandoned it some more. It was always a BIT sketchy and while a lot of it remains pretty sketchy, the figures became more fully realised, and thus the focus, and that was what I went back to and worked on until I declared 'done'

The backdrop again is sort of vaguely Dundee. It should really be Edinburgh, but I guess the architecture of Dundee is more ingrained into my sychological source material when it comes to drawin buildings. Especially Perth Road, a long road I must have walked thousands of times my four years at art school. . .

I liked to think of this as not two people standing in front of some distant buildings as two people standing in front of a painting of some distant buildings. And again, bear that in mind, it's an element in some of what I go on to paint next. . .

I like it. The depiction of Emm is far more 2002 than 2009 - rounder face and so on - but i chose not to get finnicky and correct that. Actually, I kind of like that about it. . .

opoponax, 3.

. . . i think i'll skip a large chunk of the rest. the stuff following on from that last batch into, well, i think its direction was fairly clear. and i feel more negative about posting that stuff today than otherwise, so. . .

another time, maybe. but probably not. anyway. . .

these eleven images are kind of representational of the end of that dark period. we're into november now - the lines are less gnarly, have taken on a different quality altogether in places and there's a definite narrative going on from one image to the next - though we're looking at selections here, not the whole pile - i think you can pretty much see the tension ebbing away. . .

also, yonder pajama wearing skeleton has become something more fully formed than the inky mess that first manifested. . .



34.

this is somewhat out of place in a way, a pencil drawing amongst all that solid black and white, but i wanted to post this because i like it, and because, like previously, backgrounds are creeping into my stuff in the form of interiors as WELL as exterior scenery, as seen here in the shape of, well, my kitchen. this was fast and done with more or less the same ethic as the ink drawings had been done with - don't worry about portraying what you see so much as what you feel. so while it's slight as drawings go in one sense, it's another step somewhere new. . .
















35 & 36.

35 is sort of an anomally. the birdman figure was an abandoned piece from weeks earlier which i just randomly looked at one evening and said 'this needs another figure', which kind of went against my newfound habit of doing the drawings, leaving them and doing something else. a few corrections were made - which i regret now because they stick out like a sore thumb - in white ink, and a more straightforward self-portrait was added. i think. . . this is one of those pieces that has a narrative undercurrent, which 36 carries on with. 36 is noteable for being botha little less stylised, and for the fact that it was done in my trusty sharpie's - the second, actually - death throes. . .


























37.

this one's open for interpretation, but even i don't know what's going on in it. i love this, though, mopstly for small things like emma's hair, my general dishevelled appearance - and the first appearance of the new suit and tie MASKLESS birdman look - the positioning of the fence, compositionally and by no means last or least, our skeletal oddball looking. . . well, skeletal. . . again though, definite narrative suggestion here. that illustration degree not going completely to waste, then . . .
















38 - 40.

a mixed bag of stylized, random goofiness - 38 - further exploration of cityscape backgrounds and composition - 39 - and looser scratcvhing around with a new sharpie, seeing what can be come up with on one very white sheet of A4. i think by this point i'd become equally fond of that damn skeleton and the fully realised owl mask, but eprhaps even more fond of the medium itself. . .






































41.

there's almost nothing to this. i don't think it could be any more minimal - and yet, i don't think i could love it any more than i do. . .
















42.

the final three images - for today at least - are completely random and polar. i don't think they could be more different from each other. this one, i think, is a favourite of mine from a small pile of mask drawings i did around this time kind of. . playing around with how the character had looked and how i wanted him to go. i'm not sure why this one stands out for me, i just like the lines. . .
















43.

bizarre that my hand should ever draw such a thing. do i necessarily like this? no. but the oddness of me drawing it lends its right to a place here. it's another small part of where we're going. this is kind of a landmark of ugly dundee architecture, a tower building belonging to the universtity which. . shows up less stylised in the background of at least one later piece you'll see. . . soon enough. . .

















44.

. . . needs no commentary, explanation, or words of any kind.

Leftovers.

. . . . right.

so where to begin. the start, i guess. dozens upon dozens of pieces to upload and post that tell some kind of a story of going through a dark period last october into november, drawings for the most part but which - i think - don't necessarily make for easy viewing.

someone you love deeply almost dying kind of has. . . an adverse reaction on your work. and work into that other things going on at the same time - they were some pretty dark times. 'pretty' pictures' are not made on darker days. . .

thus, we'll begin with some leftovers - some rescans, some unposted stuff, some from as early as last spring, a couple of others from early october. before, you could say. . . and again, some i like, some i'm posting because emma - the subject, as ever - likes them, and some are better than others. . .

a note - i work from my imagination. i don't use photographs, i don't draw from life. i used to do both, but, especially working from photographs for a few years led me to a place where i became VERY dependant upon reference material and when it came to drawing from the top of my head, once my favourite way to work, i became overly critical of everything i produced, and that. . . bled into my other work. the decision to NOT work from source material has pros and cons - sometimes for example, the likeness of a person is lost a little in favour of capturing more some essence of them. i couldn't say whether that's a pro or a con, it's just something that is. some of what i do comes off very stylised, some doesn't. my brain decides. it's. . . i think, as honest a way to draw, or paint as there is.

so. some of it is better than others. but even the weaker stuff has elements i like. as you'll see when everything 'kicks off' in the next entry, the aesthetic goal of everything looking 'right' sort of goes out of the window in favour of expressive, visceral purging. and it does very much become about imagination, and abandoning old, finnicky, realist habits. . .

these, meanwhile, mostly speak for themselves, though some liner notes might be helpful. i'll post those at the end.






































































































































































































'liner notes':

1- the 'very short-haired emma' drawing is an oldie. about a year ago she had her hair cut almost - but not quite - that short, something she immediately regretted and fortunately her hair grows almost freakishly fast, the progression of which can be seen over the course of the other drawings, although it's often hard to put older stuff in chronological order because i - to appease her unease over how short her hair was - more often than not drew her with LONGER hair. . .

2- the dark, inky 'sleeping emma' piece that follows is one of my favourite pieces from last year. acrylic/ink on board, this kind of thing i feel i'm 'in my element', it's messy and loose in places (okay, most of it) and then finnicky in others like the hair. i also really liked that wing / shadow because it could be either, but wouldn't have worked with the usual, standard owl's wing. and more on owls, later. . .

3- the single, colour piece is me messing around with watercolours, not especially liking it and then inking lines over the whole thing. and yes, i know her head is disproportionately large. her head isn't that big in real life, i promise. i should also point out that she doesn't wear that cardigan ALL the time. i'm just especially fond of it. . .

4- the three panel piece. this is from the 'book of emma' and dates back to about the same time as a similar, almost comic book page. i like this a lot, even though as emma pointed out before i was even finished drawing the thing, the third panel looks more like sarah from 'chuck', which we'd not long watched. that's the subconscious for you. some you win, some you lose. . .

5- ears. some of those are emma's, some of them are mine. and some of them are composites. i was clearly a bit OCD that particular day.

. . . and the last two were the last two done BEFORE everything went. . . dark. the humour and prettiness of these is all but missing from what follows.

so these were as good a place as any to begin all this again . . .