Monday 27 August 2012

An Exact Kind of Sixth Sense

I have drawn all my life. Since before I can remember. One of my earliest ever memories - I was a toddler at the time - involves trying to draw (for some reason) a huge rock falling off a cliff. My first attempt pleased me I recall. My second attempt was less successful. I remember being confounded at how I could do it one time and not another. And then I probably watched Play School.
Drawing is something I have little control over. What happens happens. The drawing is in control. It's a bit like being possessed - when it's going well that is. When it goes badly, it feels like that second attempt at drawing the rock falling off a cliff. I put a lot of details into my drawings - and have used a magnifying glass before to put things in that no-one will ever see.
I began the above drawing on July 6th this year, and is probably the largest figurative drawing I've done. I'm about halfway through now, which means I should be finished sometime in October. I did want it finished by the end of summer, but as I said - the drawing is in control. The above photograph is me a couple of hours ago, early Bank Holiday afternoon in my room. A warm grey day outside. The last days of summer.
The drawing has gone through a number of titles, though the only one I like is the first, as is often the way The Coppice Miners. 
I don't know what the title means, but it makes for a certain and exact kind of sixth sense.