Friday, January 27, 2012

Street Sketches


watercolour - figures 8-12cm tall

It is with some alarm that I realise that I have let my rapid figure-drawing slip. These are the best of a recent batch done since That Festive Period, and they really don’t match up to those done a year ago. I’m taking far too long to take in the figures as a whole, which means that I end up seeing them from different angles as they march past the window, which plays merry hell especially when drawing the legs. Which is annoying.

However, the one of the girl, on the right, is quite interesting technically. I’d been mucking about trying to do Japanese style woodblock prints (no results yet that merit a post) and this involves using a sort of wallpaper paste. I used some of this in the watercolour and found that it has a soft, evening-out effect within the washes - the opposite of the blotchiness of the figure on the far left. Neither is good or bad, but it’s a useful effect on the copy paper I use for these sketches.

Sadly, paste doesn’t improve the process of looking. There’s only one way to do this, and that’s to do more drawings more often, and looking harder. So if I do that, everything will be alright again...

Actually, I’m not all that bothered this week as things in general are going pretty flipping well alright, seeing as how I’ve just had two pieces selected for the annual Scottish Artists’ societies’ exhibition in the RSA*. That’s two years running now – very exciting. July’s Wreck No.5 is upstairs in the VAS* section, and last month’s Wreck No.9 is in the smaller SSA* rooms downstairs.

The show is on from Saturday 4 February till Thursday 1 March, and is a tasty addition to the CV. It’s usually an interesting exhibition - if you’re in Edinburgh, pop along.

So, despite feeling a bit miffed* with my drawing, I’m well chuffed* about the other thing...


* Initials and vernaculars
RSA – Royal Scottish Academy. Top Gallery in Edinburgh
VAS – Visual Arts Scotland
SSA – Scottish Society of Artists
Miffed – Slightly disappointed
Chuffed – Quite happy and proud. Full of oneself, possibly unbearably so