Thursday 7 July 2016

My black and white world. Works for sale.


Last nights drawing got slightly interrupted by the reportage on The Chilcot Enquiry and the sight of Blair on the television makes my skin crawl, he looked like a worried demon, so I got less drawing done last night and didn't finish anything to share. So I am showing you blog readers and writers some of my monochrome works done from quite recently and some older ones that show a small part of my drawing journey over the last eight years. Above is a drawing I finished a month or so ago as I have probably said before I don't usually title my drawings unless I have to. This one is called Blackstar/Starman and is my response to the death of David Bowie. He was a very large figure in my musical upbringing, he made some of my favourite albums Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust, Low, Heroes, Scary Monsters to name just a few. He produced such a great wide body of work and I love the way he came back into our lives with his last two studio albums still being the artist he always was, changing and confrontational.


Above is another drawing on my journey it was started over eight years ago and at that time it was just a grid done by 'taking a line for a walk'. It was done for my first solo exhibition which was at the Stantonbury Gallery in Milton Keynes in 2009. The exhibition was entitled 'The Theory Of Everything'. Late last year I found the grid still in my portfolio and decided I must get some dots on it. At a rough calculation there must be something like 150,000 dots on it and is now complete.


Above is a drawing from 'My First Book Of Dots' and was probably done around 2007, the book comprises of millions of dots all done with the same pen type, a Pilot V5. This complete book is awaiting to be photographed and hopefully turned into an ebook. The book really got the invention into my methods and processes, it got me on my long journey into what I do today and the exploration needed to keep doing it.


Above is a drawing that I did on a few days away in Dorset with my wife Zoe Eaton trying to get things finished for that first solo show I mentioned above and in fact it became  my very first 'Bleeding Narrative' drawing. This is the reverse side and my favourite side, I just love the way the ink fades as I did the drawing in one hit. At that solo show I was too timid to show this side and framed it the other way showing the way I had drawn it. I wouldn't do that now I trust my own instincts these days.


Above is the final monochrome image of today, taken from 'My First Book Of Dots'. It took me five years to complete this work. Some might say that it is just a sketchbook and it started that way for me too. However as continued to work in it and got more connected with what I was doing and the way I had to be inventive to keep the narrative of the book it started to really feel like a whole work and by the time I finished the final drawing and messed with the cover a bit putting black dots on a black cover. I finished it in 2012 and now thinking about it, it feels like a huge body work and a strong statement of intent. I hope to get some better images from it sometime in the future.

Off to start drawing shortly, I did half an hour earlier on my new larger scale line drawing that I started yesterday. It is going to take a while to complete as I am drawing it with a uni pin .1 pen.  You see I get these ideas, what would it look like to see a whole big drawing with such a thin nib made with lines. I showed a small part of it in yesterday's blog and when I have done more and it is worth reporting my progress, I will share.

The drawings above that aren't from my book are all for sale at The Uys Gallery Tregenna Hill St Ives and many other varied works on paper, stone, wood, bark and crystal resin all available at reasonable prices too. www.uysgallery.co.uk/


Cheers!

No comments:

Post a Comment