Compulsion

I’m in my studio working on my own work for the first time in months. With no reason other than to follow my intuition and the drive to make. I feel an urge that will not be satisfied until I have created something of worth. This of course could happen today, tomorrow or in months, years time. But still I continue, without real knowledge of when, but strongly with the faith that it will happen. I feel almost overwhelmed by the urge I am feeling to chase a feeling of joy and fulfilment in my work. Sometimes I get close and even feel like it is here, finally, I’ve reached the ‘Holy Grail’, and then it fades and it starts all over again. The quest to follow, to find, to search, never dissipates. And when I am tied up in life, in work and have no time for myself, the feeling is pushed into my heart like a hamster stocking up for winter. I can’t help but feel this intense pressure boiling up inside.

But today I am working, and the feeling is intensifying like no other day I have had of late. I feel like my body and mind are suppressing my heart but in the same breath allowing my hands to feel the way forward, through the dirge of my mind. It is through my hands that I must make sense of a situation. Listening to Eno, erasing all distractions of words, of form, or reason, my hands are talking and creating once more… they are home. My words flowing through my fingers, I must get back to my hands, to breathe, to create, to colour my world.

Sketching with Life

For me sketching from life means more than just drawing from a real pineapple or life drawing (memories of A-Level and GSCE Art!). It means getting out in situ and drawing, along with working from memory of the life I live, on a daily basis sometimes. As a creative I find beauty in pretty much anything. A dank day outside the studio can offer a window to a beautiful hazy light, with details of Autumn and illuminating weather systems. Along with windy woodland days when walking the dog.

The view from my studio

From memory

Sketching from memory

On the river estuary

I took myself off to sketch by the docks. Looking down on them from the road. I'm not sure I want to commit to getting permission to going right in there just yet, so I'm just getting a feel for different environments and get a range of marks and structures etc into my sketchbook folio. I hope you enjoy them as much as I loved making them. I'm even thinking of making books of them. Maybe make a Falmouth book? when I go to Paris do the same and also a Plymouth book? I love it and think this may be the way forward for me within illustration. Authenticity as it's purest. We are going to Paris with college and I will be hopping over to Italy to the Bologna book fair, to finally see my books in situ there and also to see the exhibitions and other publishers etc. A goal to get a bit of new work together maybe too, I cannot wait! So I will take my gear to sketch with and come back hopefully with a European infused sketchbook or two. 

 

The final count down...

UNIT 3... I've decided to do what I love doing and then work out what it's all about along the way.. I love collage and I love drawing well. I love exquisite work and I would love to be able to produce work that is described in such a way... A long way to go and this is a new piece along the lines I would like to work. The thing is I've seen this kind of work and know I am influenced by what I have seen soo I need to work on the different levels in my own way so i make it my own.. I'm hoping to draw animals from life, so that means going to a farm, the zoo, the museum and others so I'm looking forward to pushing myself and seeing what comes out!... this is something I stayed behind after work to do.. I haven't done any of my own drawings so I used Kiki Smiths drawing of a deer to show as an example.