The Width of a Line

There is something fascinating about drawing the same subject again and again. I like to see other people doing it, to track and try to understand the changes from each attempt to the next. I know mostly from landscape artists who do this, like Loriann Signori, or Sargent’s watercolours from Venice, and of course outdoor subjects can look different every day. But so do potplants (they grow!), and there are some definitive favourite drawing models among mine. I also like the feeling of really sinking my teeth into a subject that I get when drawing it several times in a row. In this case, I also experimented with different perspectives - I just couldn’t make up my mind which angle I preferred.

I also enjoyed the effects of overlaying several drawings on the same page, and the contrast between the very organic plant and the geometric shape of its pot. But I did not ‘finish’ my study of this little plant. The notes on the last page say:

I want to get more detailed & exact with this little plant

And then, four weeks later:

(but when I came back from London it had grown too big. Try with another one.)

Ah, plans. I never run out of them.

There is a house in my neighbourhood I find very intriguing. Every time I pass it I think that it would be great to draw. Last saturday was the first time I actually sat down and tried.

I don’t like at all how that turned out. Today I tried again, misremembering an exercise I had read of over at handprint, drawing like usually but only painting in the shadows. I like that one much better.

On my way home I saw this view of it in the corner of my eye, and had to try again.

I have the feeling that I have a lot to learn from that house, and that I will do it again and again and again in the months to come.

I spent the weekend in Hamburg, and for the first time ever I walked around in this city on my own for a few hours. This was a view I encountered on my way back, when I was already so hungry that I wasn’t feeling the hunger anymore, but I had to draw this. I sat down in front of the police station - the left side, the casino, faces the Reeperbahn, the right side is more of a backstreet, and sports an advertisment for a supermarket.

In addition to doing my general travel drawing stuff, I also managed to take part in a session of life drawing. Because I forgot my bigger paper, these drawings ended up in the sketchbook as well. And what a great place for life drawing this is! I’ve never before seen a room so perfectly laid out for doing exactly this, with the old theater-like benches and the lighting and the mirrors, and a huge shelf with phantastic casts. I could’ve spend days just drawing that room. There was an enjoyable yet focused atmosphere as well.

Trafalgar Square was my muse. Almost every day (except for this one) started by me going there in the early morning, and trying. And trying again. And Again. Maybe less a muse than a problem that I just could not give up on. I think I will have to try again the next time I’m in London. This is clearly some unfinished business.





The note on the last one (which I felt had started really good, and had high hopes for) reads: “Had to abandon when tents were put up that blocked the view.”