Drawing Room summer school - day 3, Wednesday

A chance to make my random drawings into ... what?

We spent the morning looking at everyone's work. For me, it was "I know what I think when I hear myself speak" and also "oh, I should have said...". Describing how they came to be, and showing the book with the pix from the magazine (which seemed to be of interest).

I'd hoped to used the book from the Schnutzgen-Museum
(medieval art; Cologne)as a source the day before

The map, and the reduced-scale mock-up, were lying on the table, and the suggestion was that a book format seemed to be the obvious way forward. I thought so, too, but it was mid-afternoon before the discussion of everyone's work ended and we could get back to drawing.

What I didn't say was that I don't feel "comfortable" drawing - it's a challenge each time, starting with choosing a subject, deciding on the medium, getting started, keeping going.... This is one of the realisations that hit me during the walk round the room. Another was the tension between being rigid - sticking to what you set out to do - and pushing yourself...to do what, though? respond to the work? do it "better"? change how you work?

After experimenting with sharpies and tracing paper and getting nowhere (just annoyed!) I put a big sheet of paper up on the wall and started transcribing images from the Schnutzgen-Museum book, working dark -

 The previous drawings didn't photocopy well at all: too light, too wispy...

 A big room with lots of wall space, and everyone in their own drawn world, or else in conversation -

 Yesterday most people were working in paint, and I finally got around to that in the last 15 minutes of the day -

The hasty addition of tracings and map/book maquette made me feel I'd at least been working on, or towards, something.

A glass of wine was on offer - from the bad start to the day (delay on tube after not having time for proper breakfast), this was 1000% improvement! And the white was my favourite, viognier...

The view ... much construction in the area

Artist of the day - new to me, Michael Booremans. He paints, but what got plucked from the library shelf was a book of drawings, including this one, "Canardines" -

 I had read about the image before seeing it ... the book opened to this text ...

"The Mask of Simplicity" was also rather shocking, so I looked it up in the introductory text ...