No place to hide

Mid winter and a cold studio has moved me to drawing on the dining room table.  Country life often feels isolated from any art scene, especially when observing the feast of art shows on the internet. 

I'm excited by what drawing has brought to the surface so far, it's directness and immediacy being the first unexpected discoveries. When you start with a blank piece of paper and pencil, immediately you're faced with, what is driving the work? There's no place to hide.  

My initial intent was to get more from tone than I had been getting in my paintings. I wasn't as good as I remembered and it took time to warm up. The decisions to be made couldn't be sidelined, no colour, no paint to distract. I find that the discoveries happen differently through this medium, not sure I can explain the why of that. It seems such a paradox to be in control, yet to also break into new space.

Thinking I was hibernating in the hills of Onewhero, posting my efforts to Facebook, I find my drawings on a curated art blog overseas, there amongst shots of sleek dealer galleries sits photos of my drawings on grubby studio walls.  

Below is the first work I have done since beginning drawing.

Note to self: paint studio walls

Touching Ground Lightly,  2014  Acrylic, aluminium 600 x 600 mm

Size Matters  

I've been getting the advice from some to go bigger, prompting discussions around scale, content and physicality.  I think scale is part of the content and amping up the visceral experience by bending space on a larger scale is something to explore.  

I'm also exploring drawing as an end in itself.  Usually drawing is my tool for trying things out, or the starting point to asking questions. My hope is that drawing will expand my understanding of tone, form and perspective.  The length of one of the three current drawing projects is a year, which allows reflection and development to occur. Working towards a show does promote faster decision making, in that you are forced to push through obstacles in order to resolve work for the impending show. Conversely I see value in working while not having the end date pressures, no matter how hard and fast you work, learning occurs when understanding happens. I've been asked to write about these drawing projects for a UK site, so I'm here trying to record my thoughts, to map expectations against the outcomes later.

This week I was lucky enough to receive  feedback from an overseas art critic and artist.  It was wonderful to have fresh eyes looking at my work, his words lifted me, and his advice rang true.

Notes:

Add more tone

Introduce colour, perhaps one at a time.

Expand scale, or consider group installation

Draw 

Alone at the Coal Face 

Someone recently advised me that if a reviewer doesn't like what you do, you should do more of it. 

I had my work reviewed three times last year. I was grateful for some really good honest critique, as having my work challenged forced me to further question my position, which in the end strengthened my resolve to remain on the same path.  There are things I still want to find out.

In preparing for a presentation last year, I collected and studied three years worth of images, basically looking at what I had done from Masters onwards. Doing this proved valuable in that it gave me a long shot view of where I'd been and which works were more resolved.

My last work of 2013 Ground is my jumping off point for this year, another starting point is to use this space as an extension to my work book: a place to deposit ideas and find focus, to build a visual diary for later reflection.
  

Diane Scott Ground  2013 Acrylic, aluminium, enamel 600 x 600 mm
James Wallace Arts Trust

Notes:

Paint: as frame, backdrop, form, perspective and plane
Support: as format, ground, plane, drawing, form, reflective and object
Colour: as deferral (yellow halo), spatial flatness and shape (white), mid space (grey)

Trace: as form, perspective, reflective
Format: square repeated, tilted, floating and off wall,