Tempus fugit

I can't believe it's over two months since I wrote something here! I've done almost no drawing at all in recent months. I'm on vacation till later this month and drawing has been on the back burner. The days have slipped by with visits to concerts, a few days in London, a visit to Venice, and shopping. I will finish my break in Bristol before driving home in about 10 days time..

So what, if anything, do I have to show here?


The 4 drawings included below are - as usual - put together from patterns I remember, 'borrowed' or invented and are consequently bitty and piecemeal. I'll call them 'dingbats' after the symbolic font all computer users know and number them according to the order shown here. The photo quality is poor. I have a new digicam now that gets good results. I'll post some snaps over on FAPJ soon and try to replace the ones below when I'm back home.

Looking at them now, I feel I have already moved on. In fact, I was irritated rather than zen-therapied by my last drawing attempt the other week and ripped it up. I need new ideas that I think they go in the direction of drawing 'proper'. I saw some wonderful trees in a park today and want to draw them - or at least studies of the bark textures - with graphite and or charcoal, Thanks to my diligent digital photography. I might even be successful. It produced over 200 images this afternoon and I'm learning to photograph 'models' from several angles. Pictorial art involves reducing 3D to 2D without losing the 3D effect. It definitely helps of you have more than one photo-shot to refer to.

The magic word is "shading". Dingbats 3 is shaded and some shapes are nicely rounded. In Dingbats 2 the dark shading between the flowers brings them forward. Dingbats 4 has colour, but no shading to any degree. The ochre comes from a used (brewed) teabag drawn gently over the paper. Dingbat 1 is probably unfinished.

dingbats 1

dingbats 2

dingbats 3

dingbats 4