Drawings 2010, 3.

continuing the year's earlier stuff, these three - more finished looking - drawings are from around the end of february, three variations on compositions i was playing around with, the first of which should look familiar. these three are among my favourite pieces of that period and were more focused breaks from all the loose drawings, and time-consuming paintings. . .

there are all A3 sized and thus, are represented by photographs rather than scans. #11 proved the hardest to photograph because of its very subtle shading here and there, so, bear that in mind. the other two are good representations of the actual pieces though. . .

it should also be noted that straying out of my trusty A4 scale was kind of a big deal for me. . .



11.























remember winter drawing #2? this is a progression ON from that, one of a series of variations and my favourite of the bunch, though there's another less stylised. this one has the subtitle 'freewheelin'', and if i have to explain that *shakes head* give yourself a slap.

this was another step into incorporating more of a background into the image i was producing. there was a lot of messing about drawing very loose building compositions with no figures in that led up to the likes of this, which i like. the other two drawings here are less busy, obviously . . .

there's a painting similar to this to come.


12.























this one, i love - it's kind of an 'iain image' if ever there was one. what i mean by that is that there are images emma says are instantly recognisable as my work by compostion and feeling as well as style, and i think this is one of those.

i like lots about this, i think it works and the likenesses are both really good, as i think is the division between dark and light areas of the image, and the poses. as someone who draws but is his own worst critic, this the kind of image you do five or six drawings for the 'that's okay, that's fine' pile to get to.

side-note: i can't take credit for the stray feathers falling from those great, dark oily wings - those were emma's idea. she does sometimes HAVE these little insights and ideas that i just wouldn't think of for one reason or another, so, credit where it's due. . .

and it's probably unsurprising for me to tell you that a painted version of this is currently 'work in progress'



13.























you can kind of tell this one was drawn around the same time because it shares a lot of linear and tonal qualities, though again it's quite different in feeling to #12 i think. . .

i like this one a lot too. side-note, remember what i was saying a couple of entries ago about emma's hair constantly changing length and that being a kind of artistic license? this is a good example - i deliberately made her hair shorter in this image so that the lovely area where her the back of her neck and shoulder meet and the dark hollow between her jaw and shoulder would be open to the eye. look at the drawing and try to imagine hair obscuring that area and you'll perhaps understand WHY i do these things. the drawing just wouldn't be the same without these little details. the same could be said of the neck on #12.

not that i have a thing about necks. . . . okay, i do, i admit it

*shrug*

i sometimes wonder in posting this stuff if it will be positively recieved, not because i don't think it's good, but because i'll be the first to admit my work has become utterly self-indulgent in the last year, moving away from very anonymous figure compositions and into, well, capturing the woman i love in one way or another and not really doing anything BUT that. i mean you kind of know when iain posts new work, it's not going to be anything other than another visual love letter to the little blonde spitfire, but. . .

i can live with that. i am happy with the stuff i produce, and i long since gave up being someone who paints FOR other people. art's not my career, it's something i do out of a compulsion to express feelings i have about the things around me with meaning, and those things within me that can't be expressed with clumsy words.

if nothing else, it's honest. . .

anyway - that's all for now. next - some more painting. . .

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. . .

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 . . .

random.

saturday is the day for random drawings from what amounts to a sizeable backlog pile. all pencil, different dates, different levels of completion and quality and some i'm happier with than others, but. . .

happiness

happiness. exactly as the title suggests. one of my favourite emma drawings, so far. some artistic license used in giving her longer hair, but. . . i like it.

another very straightforward drawing from the book of emma. . .

"Sunday"

... and so we begin, again.

more to come. . .

Book of Emma, pg 6

yes,

a third post this crazily hot weekend, and another page from the slowly filling up 'book of emma' featuring the sketchbook debut of fergus the dog, also known as baron ferqus de montmartre the doggerel dog. . .

strangeness. fairly sketchy, and emm came out looking a bit like rachel mcadams (no bad thing, because SHE'S gorgeous), but i like it a lot :)

pencil and a bit off pitt artists marker pen as usual. i should have those items welded to my hands, theyr'e all i ever draw with. . .

the book of emma pg 4, and some teasers

the fourth page of the emma sketchbook and again, more along the same lines though admittedly a little more detailed this time with the shading and such:


















pretty much how i remember her looking when i'd go into costa coffee during the summer of 2002 for a latte and biscotti - chunky thumb ring, pigtails, nose stud, notebook pen and pencil tucked into her apron, big badge with her name and a smiley face on. . . the angel wing is obviously artistic license, of course ;)

anyway. THESE are some high contrast teasers of the 'emma #3' painting i'll be posting tomorrow ahead of 'ode #2' which i'll be posting over the weekend with more drawings and some randomness. the colours are a lot more subtle, but you'll see that. . . tomorrow

the book of emma, pages 1 - 3

the first three pages from the aforementioned 'book of emma' sketchbook which are pretty indicative of what the thing's all about (if the name alone doesn't give it away). . .

the first page sort of gave birth to the idea, just one of thos ethrowaway drawings, but i liked the way it looked and felt.

they're a little stylised and not overly finnicky, but i'm happy with all three drawings stylistically and expressively speaking, particularly pages 2 and 3 which make kind of an autobiographical 'before and after' kind of visual couplet, the first a representation of my first meeting proper with emma ross, when her hair was drastically longer and mine was considerably shorter and without a trace of grey.

details like her woven leather bracelet, chunky thumb rings and long retired nose-stud are included to exemplify my ability to remember seemingly minor details seven years later in spite of not knowing what DAY it is half of the time. . .

the third page is my favorite of the three, not for the obvious reasons of what it shows, but more i think compositioonally and such it just came out really nice, and the lines are nice and crisp instead of wavery and all over the place. . . for a change.

so there you go. watch this space, there's much more to come. . .

note: i'm photographing these rather than scanning them. don't ask me why but i feel like scanning pencil drawings kind of. . . loses something, scanned pencil pieces never look quite right for some reason. . .

-iain