Balla / linear progression v1 - 4, work in progress
I’ve been enjoying the warmer days here, and working on a new series of drawings that derive from a modular pencil drawing. To be honest, I’ve probably spent far too long editing it all, and it’s certainly been an education in discovering how much time can be used up when delving into a granular edit of a specific drawing. In this case several weeks, maybe a month.
That said, I now have a hybrid drawing that I can fine tune, edit and recolour without degrading the original pencil work, as everything has been scanned and digitised, so each mark is separately adjustable and movable; I think there may be as many as 900 individual elements in play; and it's been great to work up a new technique for making work.
If you’d like to see how the drawings have been constructed, I’ve made an animated version of it and put that on YouTube here >
You’ll notice that I have two versions of my green and magenta variant! I haven’t been able to choose which one I prefer yet. Perhaps that will become clear as they settle in a little over the coming weeks.
Beyond the interest of seeing an animation of how the drawing has been put together over time, the real story here lies in the idea of creating a work that has the aesthetic of a pencil drawing, graphite on paper, but with the added creative flexibility of the digital world, which it does.
I’m going to stop at six variations I think, so I’m expecting to make maybe two more versions over the next week or two. But for now, I’m broadly happy with these first four editions, which I hope speak about the spring to varying degrees. As you can see, the influence of the tone and hue shifts can vary the base drawing immensely, and allow for significant shifts in mood and saturation.
I'm looking forward to printing the drawings as new works on paper, probably at around 60cm square, with maybe a 7cm white border all around. I'll need to make a few proofs to ensure the size works well on the wall. Until then, I hope these first studies using this new technique may be of interest, I'm already looking forward to drawing the next series this way...
.
I thought it might be interesting to see some of the in progress images here too. These are typical of the kind of modular components I’m working with, and maybe give some idea of how the drawings are constructed. I imagine it’s a little like recording a piece of music, elements are layered and mixed as a final composition develops from a lengthy series of decisions that ultimately deliver the final piece. The trick is to be able to discriminate effectively in order to nail down a final vision for the work, and not get too lost in the myriad possibilities along the way.
