I’m about 75% done with all three drawings, which means that I’m in a good place considering my July 27 deadline with summer session starting at RISD and Wellesley in about 2 weeks. Everything is blocked into the compositions so that I can now focus on smaller passages without worrying too much about losing the essential composition. Since I’m at this point, my drawing pace is slowing down, becoming less aggressive, and smaller in scale. The square lithographic tablets and the lithographic rubbing ink were appropriate for blocking in the largest masses, and but now that I’m getting more focused on the detail work, I’m shrinking down to the lithographic pencils and smaller chunks of crayon.
The other change in my work process is that I’m really starting to work between the layers of Dura-Lar, moving back and forth to constantly re-evaluate their relationship to each other The consequence of working with multiple layers is that I frequently end up covering up sections of the drawing that I like, or I end up losing details that are hidden behind the Dura-Lar. To emphasize the translucency I’m trying to draw through the figures with the ripples of water as much as possible, something I haven’t used as much in the past.
Stepping back and getting distance from the drawing as I work on it has become especially important given the scale of this piece. I won’t really know how it will appear until it’s in the gallery since my space in the studio is limited. The gallery I’ll be in for the Davis Museum exhibition has 25′ tall ceilings, so I’m hoping the drawings will still be able to hold their own, even in such a monumental space.
Clara Lieu 