l’m so lucky to be attending the atelier; so, so lucky to be drawing from a model every day with amazing teachers but it is suprisingly easy to get caught up in the process, to get stuck in the analysis and the structure and the process and forget what it’s really all about.
Atelier training is just that: training. At the moment it is difficult and frustrating, as most worthwhile things are at some stage. It helps to remind myself that it is training and the purpose of this training.
So what is it all about?
For me it is about the imperative to draw. It is about how I feel when I am working on a drawing, about what I want to say with my drawing that there simply aren’t words for and perhaps most of all it is about what I discover through drawing; things that I didn’t know I thought or felt or was capable of feeling. It is fundamental, when it works, I look at my drawing and I am suprised by what I see there because I did not draw that, I don’t know how to put ‘that’ into a drawing. I am in awe of some superior connection, of emotion and meaning that is beyond me.
How do I get there?
Walking backwards and forwards, constantly evaluating what I have drawn in sight size, correcting and recorrecting my shapes, lines and values; it is hard to hold on to that sense of wonder and awe and the desire to communicate it in my drawing. Sometimes it seems impossible to reconcile such extremes, at other times the unfolding of knowledge brings its own rewards in new acheivements. More often my frustrations overcome the simple methodology and the longed for quiet sanctuary of meditative movement and process.
Just draw: in silence and slow time
I want to hold on to those moments of unselfconscious awareness; when time seems to flow around me and my focus is contained completely in my drawing. Drawing in the paradox of the perfect moment, fleeting and eternal. Just draw: in silence and slow time.
