Old-school drawing will never die
All artists of a certain age have one thing in common: as soon as we figured out how our hands worked, we would take something off and make a mark with it. Usually it was the crayon or at pencil, and as often as not it was on the freshly painted walls of our parents’ house. We were ‘helping’.
Later, for me, drawing became very important. I really wanted to get good at it. I got pencils, specifically B pencils, and later experimented with wax crayons, soft pastels, oil pastels, and later charcoals when I had the opportunity. I loved drawing. Even when I wasn’t officially making art during my time at UCD, I would still draw almost every day. Most of these drawings were simply doodles, something to occupy part of my brain when I was supposed to be doing something else.
When I lived in the Netherlands and had the opportunity to study art on part-time basis, I focused very much on observational drawing. When I was studying the human figure, I tried to draw the delicate, difficult details like the fingers, the hands, the knuckles, where the hand meets the wrist, the ankles, the intricate arch of the foot, the wriggling toes. It got easier over time. I also attempted to draw portraits, and while I did have some success with this, I never really took it very far.
Sketching in the wild is what I love. When I’m around people, I like sketching them. I love hanging out in cafes for this very purpose, sketching couples, family groups, friends having coffee, individuals reading a newspaper or a book, or looking at a computer or phone. When we go hiking, I bring a sketchbook and some pencils to capture landscape scenes. In recent years, I have started to bring in Derwent Inktense blocks in my rucksack, along with coloured card paper and I use these materials to create en plein air artworks.
I see a lot of digital drawings in various social media platforms. Some of them are great. But the fact is that making drawings using a computer program does not appeal to me. I’m old school when it comes to drawing. I like to make marks on things. I like using paper, cardboard, canvas, wood panels, surfaces like these. I like the challenge of creating a line that becomes something else. I like the challenge of creating form on the surface. I am one of many artists for whom drawing is and remains the beginning of everything.
Seated figures enjoying the autumn sunshine in a square in Prague, Czechia, plus one dog.
En plein air sketch in Derwent Inktense blocks of County Tipperary from the Knockmealdown Mountains. One of two made that day.
