I’d love to tell you I carry my sketchbook around with me everywhere I go, but I’d be lying…I generally start with photographs or videos I’ve taken with my camera phone…
If you’ve followed me for a while on my Instagram, you will know that I have a soft spot for the humble feral pigeon… They never fail to make me smile as they walk industriously around on the pavements as I walk along our local high street, their heads bobbing back and forth in their comical gait. I can’t resist taking out my phone and, ignoring the rather odd looks from other people, I proceed to film and photograph them as they pick around for carelessly dropped scraps.
Once home, I will go through my video footage, searching for still frames that show the birds clearly and in compositions which may be good for developing into artworks. I will then export the frames and edit them on Photoshop. Once I have a set of images I’m happy with, I will use these as core source material to make sketches and drawings, exploring ways that I can use mark-making. I often print the images very feintly onto cartridge paper, tear around them and stick them into my sketchbook and draw on top of them… I don’t regard this as “cheating” and having the torn image stuck onto the page eliminates that fear of being confronted by a blank piece of paper! Once I start drawing, I find that I more or less ignore the feint image anyway, as I get carried away with the enjoyment of mark-making!
I have recently filled a little sketchbook with these pigeon drawings and I’m looking forward to developing them into prints. I’m not exactly sure what process(es) I’m going to use yet, but that’s part of the excitement for me!
Watch this space!
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