Drawings 2010, 2.

*sigh*

if you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding. how can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat, people? hmm?

so. one year on and my supergirl, my little blonde firecracker continue our journey, and this year so far a few blank canvasses have gone the way of the other paintings thus far - long gestation times - but my propensity to churn out loose drawings or spend hours upon finnicky ones has remained pretty consistent. . .

what's new, or one of the things that IS new is the very process of working which has altered dramatically. the newfound habit of messy ink drawings hashed out to try and capture fleeting ideas and compositions has given me a kind of focus that's led to MORE paintings being STARTED on confident footing. . . even IF they're still taking forever because of one thing or another. . .

anyway. the following is a second portion of drawings, all favourites from around february.




6.






















similar to #4, though even more 'finished' in one way, and the one i prefer of the two (emma prefers #4), i think it's just more emma. like #3, again there were areas so heavily worked on that the paper was almost ready to tear, and like #1, this one's kind of all about defining shape, the shape of her nose and lips and eyes. again, it's a bit of a preparatory for a painting along with #1, which i'll be posting soon. . .



7.























this by comparison is more of a sketch. and stylised. if i'd gotten anything out of winter aside from those i've already listed, it was kind of a re-awoken desire for context in my pieces and i began - as you've seen in a couple of other drawings - to draw cafe scenes and to get back into looking at people like edward hopper again. plotting. so we get things like tables, cups and backgrounds and other figures starting to appear rather than flat space.

as a sidenote, emm finds my constant artistic license regarding the length of her hair hilarious. why do i sometimes draw it long and sometimes short? the simple answer is i don't really know. i kind of go with what feels right for a specific image, so sometimes it being short and layered looks better. it's a bit idiosyncratic, i know, but most things about me are. some days i take sugar in my coffee, sometimes sugar and milk, sometimes just black. . .

*shrug*



8.























and THIS one's even sketchier, but is a very good example of what i was just saying about context. background. details. a year ago i'd just neve rhave drawn something like this - but i love this, regardless of its sketchiness and the fact you'd never say 'that's really great', it is what it is and it captures some fragment of my life, complete with desk, cabinets, computer, bookcase, framed comic books on the wall, action figures, headphones. . . and emma. what she's pointing at and saying is entirely open for interpretation, though. you can use your imagination there. . .



9.
























and this one. . . is another of those fantastically enjoyable sharpie drawings that on its own is - to me at least - brilliant enough in what it captures and says in the simplest of ways, but. . . i liked it so much i went on to do THIS:



10.
























which i don't think needs any commentary. i. . . love this one with a passion, for obvious reasons, but beyond that it just captures so much in such an honest way. i'm very proud of this one. . .

and that's your lot for now

-iain

Drawings 2010, 1.

okay, emm,

(sarc.)

as i said - paintings then drawings til we're up to date. and i decided to jump straight into the 2010 stuff rather than dilly dally around with the dregs of 2009, which i'll post at a later date.

after heavy-going visceral ink, and then lighter post-november drawings, the start of the new year marked a period of just playing around with different ways of drawing, in some cases carrying on with the sharpie-doodle-then-pencil-drawing method of working, in others drawings were a little more finnicky, more textural. but sometimes more linear than anything else, ranging from very stylised to more realistic and precise. there are lots of all of these, but at emma's suggestion, i'll only post four or five at a time. with notes, of course, as ever. . .




1.






















done within the last pages of the 'book of emma' this was one of the first things i drew in january and was mostly about trying to capture areas of shading around her neck, collarbones, shoulders, nose and eyes for a painting i was plotting - really just a means to an end, but it ended up being more finished and i love it because it captures more of emma than was intended - the crinkles between her eyebrows and the shape of her mouth - sarah polley teeth and all - especially. the latter, something i usually struggle with. . .

it's a favourite. . .




2.






















a much more stylised, sketchy drawing this, and an image that stuck and would be repeated in three or four other drawings before, finally, a painting. i'll post another of these next time, before the painting itself, but i like this one for small details - emm's hair and the birdman's untucked shirt in particular. . .



3.





















purely visceral and pretty much scratched with pen so hard into the paper it was nearly torn. i like this because it reminds me of etchings i did in art school. again, it's pushing myself, trying different things, seeing where it takes me rather than sitting doing the same old finnicky drawings. . .



4.





















and this one is again a favourite. done in a slightly more relaxed and less frenzied manner to the last drawing, but a lot more precise and with realism a lot more in mind, i enjoyed doing this stuff and went on to do a LOT more of it. to some degree these are descended from all that messy october sharpie work - there are even a few very minimal strokes of sharpie in this one in the bottom right hand corner. . .



5.






















aaaand charcoal, something i at that point hadn't used in months and which took a little getting used to again. this was a favourite of the first batch of charcoal drawings i did in january - giving those pens and pencils a rest - and i like this for what it is, as with the others.

i'd gone through a bad patch and through it, wanted something different from both the process of being creative AND what i produced, and these are all indicative of someone not wanting to put all their eggs in one basket.

they're a start. . .

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, 2.

. . . second batch? yes.

these are. . . different. time went on, the ratio of scrunched up balls to drawings changed drastically, and the paper-attack look lessened. they became less severe as my circumstances settled a little, though subjectively they're still pretty bleak, especially towards the last three or four, by which point. well. i don't want to go there . . .

the selection process for these was part random and part humming and hawing. between this post and the next, last post of these drawings which lead into my newer stuff that i'm far less conflicted about, there are a couple of dozen leftover pieces that i'll post at a later date, i think.

some of these are a little obtuse. some get very stylised. some are more straightforward. . .

anyway. in all their black and white sharpie and paper glory, with commentary:



19.

one of a bunch of owl-mask drawings. i picked this one because of the additional detail. it's not just sharpie and i like the contrast of teh thick lines and thin detail lines and that there's more tone to thios than just black and white.
















20 & 21.

he of the striped pajamas again. it should be clear that he really CREPT into the stuff i was producing given how unformed the first few drawings are, even the first one here. they're working towards forming a character. 20 i added because i both love the pure expressionism of the top drawing, and the oddball nonsense of the second - and both on one page.

there's nothing i don't love about 21. and 21 is the first fully formed image of this new odd addition to my rogues gallery of characters. minus the big black wings he was wearing in 15. those have been inherited by the soon to be maskless birdman. make of that what you will. . . also, this marks the beginnings of actual ARCHITECTURE showing up in my drawings instead of plain untouched backgrounds. which is. . . sort of a big thing. . .





























22 & 23.

. . . and speaking of architecture. these were random, odd, sketchy. sharpie again, with that more detailed addition of a thinner drawing pen in 23, the more 'complete of the two. i did a bunch of these, and picked two sort of at random to show the difference between the looser ones and the more finished - vaguely - drawings.





























24.

a straightforward birdman drawing. but i love this one passionately.


















25 & 26.

and it's HIM again. i think there's an odd thing with this character in that as grim as he is, he seems more court jester than grim reaper. i picked these two because i love how gnarly he looks in 25, and how utterly ridiculous and random the notion of him doing his 'sound of music' routine is', even though said drawing is pretty much just a mess of black ink. but come on, wouldn't you rather see a skeleton in stripey PJ's than julie andrews? i know i would. . .

comic relief in hard times? i think so. . .



























26 - 33.

i'll leave these without commentary. i wasn't going to post these, and i may NOT keep them up indefinitely, so. they're kind of a return to the darker tone of some of the early drawings in that last post, with reason. take them and interpret them as you will.

Opopanax, 1.

. . . and so, we begin.

i'll scatter these black and white drawings between two posts. possibly three. they're by no means ALL of what was produced, more a summary, sometimes randomly selected from piles of what amounts to very similar images. . .

obviously these are difficult to verbally summarise in any way other than describing them as being produced very physically, sometimes frenziedly. you can kind of read my moods and different points of the great low i was falling into by how linear or non-linear the images get, the line quality, so on. . .

they're not aesthetically very nice to look at, and they may technically be all over the place but they. . . well, they performed a necessary buffer. an outlet. and certainly they could be called personal. though hoinestly, i'm posting them as much to put that whole era behind me as anything else. what evolves out of this visceral near-ugliness is, toi me, better than what existed before it, artistically. . .

anyway. this bunch do fall into categories though. i think maybe more of a directors commentary is needed this time around than liner notes. . .



1-4.

. . . if something bad's starting to go down, and you feel helpless or worried it's supposedly helpful to distract yourself. these were drawn during an afternoon where my mother's condition, thought initially to be a bad dose of food poisoning got worse. and worse. and worse, until she was ambulanced into hospital, completely delirious.

attempting to distract myself, i drew. the first two drawings you can see a jump in style - my mood shifted down a notch. i attempted to focus more, rather than drawing randomly - i had an idea for a painting i wanted to do and the composition was in my head but i couldn't quite get it onto paper on top of being in a self-critical mood and my state of mind got increasingly mroe anxious, which. . . i think shows. there were more drawings, now long destroyed, that were along the same lines so to speak. the same old same old. but it was an afternoon of nothing coming out looking 'right', something that was about to be pretty much abandoned. the painting i was struggling to lay down a composition for, incidentally, i'll post two or three entries down the line - it got there, eventually.













































5-7.

three remnants of the next couple of days attempts to draw, which mostly ended up scrunched balls of paper strewn from one end of the floor to another and produced during a couple of completely sleepless nights. my mother's condition worsened., the words swine flu were thrown into the mix. her delerium got worse.

in the case of #5, i had almost, almost managed to calm my anxiety stricken brain enough to distraction and produce a drawing - in the thinner pen - that looked good, and then it went wrong. i think i screwed up the mouth, something i'm prone to doing - and pretty much ATTACKED the paper with a black sharpie. 6 and 7 could be said to have been done in the same manner, as were others, which i won't post because. . . well, you get the idea. and these are more linear examples.






































8-9.

more 'remnants', survivors of paper-massacres that didn't end up scrunched up on the floor. as things remained grim, i carried on trying not so much to take myself out of the situation as to find an outlet that wasn't, well, jumping out of the window. and while i continued with the scratchy sharpie and sometimes liquid ink, and usually destroyed the fruits of my labours, i began to loosen up the 'attacking the paper' a little. not a lot, but a little. these are sort of significant in that they're the beginnings of something that develops later on, just as 3 & 4 led to a finished piece of work, these planted a seed or two. . .

























10 & 11.

again, remnants, one marginally less loose than the other more. i did loads of these, and just picked two at random from the pile.


























12 - 15.

these, i don't even remember doing, and again they're very stark but some of the imagery, again, will be repeated later on in a more conscious manner. these also mark the first utterly random appearance of the very odd, thus far unnamed pajama wearing skeleton. make of him what you will. . .














































16 & 17.

these are random survivors of a drawing session done late into that first week my mother was in hospital, the remainders of which could be said to be a bit more like #10 and #11, but these stand out from this particular bunch. i should also note that all of these drawings are AS they appear on the paper, compositionally speaking. i think i had sort of. . . stoppsed caring about whether pieces of what i was drawing got chopped off by the edges of teh paper by this point. in fact i was just putting pen to paper and drawing with very little thought beforehand, a rather new concept given my habit of sitting staring at blank paper / canvas for minutes at a time before producing a single mark. some part of HOW i had worked to this point was no longer working. . .



























18.













and finally for this batch, further development of what i first scrawled in #8 and #9 with that mishapen and messy, vaguely birdish mask starting to become somthing very specific, the heart-shaped face of an owl.

and again, this goes soemwhere in time. . .

by this point, a lot of tension had been eased, things were begionning to still, and i think the more controlled - though still loose by my usual standards - line kind of expresses that. . .

anyway. further down the iceberg's tip next time. . .