A Drawing a Day

At the start of 2013 I embarked on the challenge of creating a drawing everyday for a year in a small A7 Moleskin diary.

 

The challenge was met with some trepidation at first but soon gathered its own momentum with some surprising, amusing and perhaps, at times, a little disturbing results.

You can read more of my progress and thoughts on the project by clicking the link below:

http://spannerintheworkz.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/new-years-resolution-is-this-end.html

 

 It was never my intention to ‘show’ the drawings when creating them, as a result the work is possibly a lot more intimate, sincere and 'unpolished' than what it would have been had I ‘made it for public consumption’. In other words, I think my self-consciousness would have gotten the better of me had I known I was going to exhibit the work and may have altered 'what' I drew as well as 'how' I drew it. As it turns-out, not having the burden of expectation other than to myself, may have proved quite fortunate as I hope it means that there is something refreshing in seeing good drawings mixed with sublime ones, bad ones, ok ones and diabolical ones (I'll let you be the judge!) Hence what you are seeing is a series of unique, little drawings that meant a great deal at the time of their creating but are none-the-less merely drawings. Collectively they have gained their own impetus from becoming a set created over the duration of a year, through its periods of doubt, joy, elation, searching, frustration, exhaustion, monumental highs, crippling lows and all the mundane in-betweens. Above all I hope it may offer a revealing and honest insight from someone that just loves to sit and draw.

 

 Scanning and cropping all 365 drawings into the computer nearly made my eyes bleed! So please have a look at the album of images either on the slideshow* or on my Flickr page by clicking on the link below.

Created with flickr slideshow.

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/113459200@N03/sets/72157639406395385/   *Note slideshow may not work on mobile/tablet devices, so please view via the link above.  

New Year's Resolution Half-way point!

The end of June marks the half-way point of my project to do a drawing a day for a year.

 

See blog post:

http://spannerintheworkz.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/new-years-resolution.html

 

What began as a new year's resolution is now fast becoming an obsession with increasingly more time each day spent on drawing/thinking of what to draw each day (eventually I plan on creating a separate blog which will show each of the drawings). What is interesting so far is that there have been some improvements in my drawing since I started and I have explored drawing with more texture and being less 'heavy handed'. The style or type of drawing remains pretty tight, illustrative and representational as I made it clear when I started that I wanted this to be an observational drawing project that was about drawing with a degree of intensity, focus and detail. The reason for this being that I feel that when drawing this way it gives you the opportunity to think on other things, focus and be open to new ideas; this wasn't ever intended to be an exercise in ways of drawing but as an exercise to think to and break away from my obsession with drawing just tools! Another unexpected discovery during this activity has been in the selection of what I have chosen to draw, so far the list being:

 

snowman, beer glass, newt, chameleon, bumble bee, frog on nut, Dali clock, dragonfly, portrait of weird looking man, ear, stork scissors, zombie, netsuke, seated Buddha from Gandhara, clay skull, coal tit, telegraph pole, netsuke nut, biro pen, dormouse, ladder, predator, dark bush cricket,  row boat, bowling pin, Mona Lisa on toast, paraffin lantern, wood pigeon, cross-section of chest, typewriter, seahorse, sheep, steak, old telephone, sailing boat hotel Dubai, lobster, ball of string, owl, amber spyglass, platypus, trumpet, pig, converse trainer, silver articulated fish, Inca gold lama, flying bird, walrus, grenade, cross-section of pepper, crab, egg in frying pan, light bulb, Don McCullin’s Nikon camera, tree frog, sundae, strawberry, pumpkin, gas mask, petrol can,   lion, guitar, chicken, film camera, hippo, Native American mask, raven, bucket, moose, peas, key, telephone, Maya Mare God statue, raspberry, revolver, prawn, peg, flame, radiator, pinwheel, hat, lettuce, accordion, fan, Sangrada Familia, Joan Miro sculpture 1, Joan Miro sculpture 2, Cat statue, La Pedera 1, La Pedera 2, anchor, pipe, dart, electric fan, tortoise, high heel shoe, poplar leaf beetle, kestrel, ray gun, vacuum cleaner, ear of wheat, shark, wood plane, hypodermic needle, seagull, unicycle, Roy Lichtenstein Desk Calendar, copper kettle, telephone box, red lipstick, snorkelling gear, pneumatic drill, fish, hour glass, knight chess piece, penny farthing, oil can, natterjack toad, roller skate, chainsaw, ice skate, fire hydrant, zeppelin, spray paint, Van Gogh Skeleton, jelly, tin robot, arrow, cuckoo catfish, iron, budgie, pickaxe, flintlock pistol, rubber duck, JCB, spinning top, lighthouse, puffin, scarecrow, lighthouse lamp, gargoyle, wooden bird, fire extinguisher, padlock, gramophone, fox skull, mushroom, flamingo, hydraulic clamp, sarcophagus, saw, hand whisk, acorn, Georges Melies’ moon,  cassette tape, kangaroo, diamond, T-Rex, squirrel, black spotted woodpecker, wren, penguin, umbrella, wooden chair, folded shirt, Somerfest beast, formula one car, pheasant, electric iron, rhino, hairdryer, fox, bowler hat, pelican, blue whale, leak, ostrich, scorpion, watering can, badger

 

I am sure Freud would have a field day analysing that lot, very disturbing. I'm not going to read too much into what I've chosen to draw in terms of symbolism/metaphor but I am interested in what I have chosen to draw says about the kind of visual aesthetics I'm drawn to. For example there's a lot of hard, robust, man-made, industrial objects there (proving perhaps I cannot ever really get away from tools) but there are also a lot of birds which makes me wonder what it is about the shape/form, pattern/texture of them that captures my interest. Similarly, when there are forms of association from one day to the proceeding, for example a pelican followed by a blue whale. I think I made the connection that the neck/pouch of the pelican is sort-of similar to that of a whale which is what led me to drawing it. Perhaps, more psychoanalysis is in there than I thought! Still, its been a fascinating and challenging discipline so far and one I hope to continue through until the end of the year.

Any suggestions of things you'd like me to draw that obviously aren't on the list above then please let me know!

New Year's Resolution

It's simple. One diary, one drawing, every day for one year. Challenge accepted!

 

A smaller than A5, possibly A6 (?) sized moleskin diary in fetching red.

 

Things have started off well, its just a matter of making it part of my daily routine. On depending how things progress I might publish the drawings in a daily blog for next year. Watch this space!

I'm aware it isn't the most original of New Year's resolutions, but I'm not doing it out of originality, I just think I'd like to improve my drawing by doing it more regularly and being more spontaneous about what I choose to draw (so don't expect too many, if any, tools!)