SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT DRAWING

It is a kind of patient meditation with pencil or pen that is both a craft and an art for me. I don't have a particular ambition or goal except to try my best.  I am irrationally proud of this effort, and I have found, over time, that it represents my life in a way that I am happy with and has a meaning to me unlike anything else.

There are artists with a marvellous skill in drawing and I think it was seeing Durer's drawings that first moved me to draw. Leonardo's anatomical drawings are phenomenal. But one can be intimidated also by such wonderful work.  I also love cartoons. Ronald Searle is a great artist and there are many others besides. Recently I've been inspired by the work of the London artist Mark Cazalet.

My pleasure in drawing has a separate life from my printmaking. When I have tried to mix them up (as for instance in the print Gulluk Quay) the result has been a sense of disappointment. Maybe some day these two approaches will mix, but not yet.

I'm posting a tiny sample of my hundreds of drawings as a fairly random selection to give a flavour of what I like.

December 2017

 

‘Drawing is the means by which all things are made comparable to one another.’

Paul Klee