Clarity

I’m beginning to put together in my head how I want to proceed technically with these drawings.  I’m thinking that the drawings will be initially be done with printmaking ink, applied to the sanded surface of Dura-lar with my hands. I’ll allow the ink to dry, and then add lithographic crayon and scrape away with an x-acto knife in order to add clarity and details to the figure.  I like how this technique would allow me to balance between the more gestural qualities of the printmaking ink and the tightness of drawing with the x-acto knife.

Today I reworked several of the drawings that I had done earlier, this time really using the x-acto knife and lithographic crayon to firm up specific areas. In doing so, I’m finding that I’m moving much more towards representation, a direction I haven’t taken in many years.  So much of my recent work has been about creating anonymous and visually ambiguous figures that I’m quite surprised by this turn of events.

a detail of the drawing; you can see the x-acto knife marks and the lithographic crayon mixed in with the printmaking ink here.