With the final compositions drafted onto the large sheets of Dura-Lar, I was ready today to get going on the final drawings. I’ve found that there’s a physicality and rhythm to drawing which is amazingly similar to athletics. When exercising, the first few minutes always feels awkward and stiff from not being warmed up. At some point, you hit a great level of being loose and warmed up but still energized and ready to take on much more. This was the point where I wanted to be at when working on the final drawing, so I elected to spend the first part of today doing small crayon studies of the individual figures in the composition.
These small studies are quick and unrefined, but they are crucial to getting me warmed up and developing a more concrete sense of how I want to articulate the form in the final drawing. These sketches allow me to move forward with the final drawing with confidence, while at the same time still leaving flexibility and opportunities to spontaneously react during the process. In a lot of ways it’s a relief to get to the final drawings after so much preparatory work. At this large scale, I’m able to use the lithographic rubbing ink and the lithographic tablets quite aggressively without inhibition which is a great feeling.
