So you thought that was good!

Well watch this...

Sometime today I stopped and read the five sentences above the drawing I was working from. AGAIN (I really need to sort this out) the lack of scanner and googles surprising inadequacy stops me from being able to show you and for that I apologise. And ye did laughter peal forth from his throat. Here I had been thinking “Skilfull bastard! What a wonderfull representation of something so solid and uncompromising” (the image being of a roman building consisting of ornate collumns and decorative masonry). I thought that he had sat down somewhere and set-to with his pen. It turns out that the image was made completely from his imagination. Christ! The skill and sensetivity is intimidating.

The discovery got me drawing areas and buildings I remember playing around when I was younger and the exercise turned out to be extremely enjoyable (if not a little too self-indulgent). I'm not quite sure what the members of staff will make of my complete departure from the brief, but true to my word I've been consumed by my interest in certain aspects of the project thus-far. Line quality and the ability to represent as much as possible in a single mark have become details which I am exploring backwards. I worked from vague images to ones where a very real likeness (to people who knew or had seen the models around) was achieved. The interesting thing is that I put barely any facial features on any of the drawings and, in that regard, a lot of them might as well have been stickmen.

Next week we begin a new module where, hopefully, I will be able to return to the work regarding weather and the world that had me so obsessed before I had to commit all of my studio time to this drawing project. I hope to build some machines I have plans for (which I WILL show when I have the means, blah blah sick of hearing) which will make a visual rather than numerical record of wind, rainfall and other elements of the weather. These would have been done by now were it not for the fact that the only time I have in which to do it (as well as the only time where the tools/timber are available) is studio time.

The catch!

Of which there always is one. The catch is that the tutors, in their abundant sympathy for how difficult it is to be fumbling around in the dark trying to grapple with an emerging practise, have decided to pair up the students for the module's duration and force us to work together on collaborative pieces of work. Whilst there are some people in the group that I think would mesh well with me in terms of the work actually... well.. working, there are plenty of people who's work is so completely alien to mine that I think, whilst the resultant dialogue would be interesting, neither party would progress. One particular student and I simply couldn't work together as she has made it abundantly clear that shes not a person I can get along with for great amounts of time. We're civil but outside of the necessary we don't have much to do with each other. Time will tell as to how successful or torturous the whole scenario will be.