Something’s not quite right with these drawings. I completed all of the finishing touches to both of these drawings the other day, adding cross-hatching with an x-acto knife and other passages with lithographic crayon. Technically speaking, they’re as resolved as they’re going to get in terms of articulating the form and details. To critique myself, I feel like the drawings are too sparse and empty, they lack the emotional intensity that I’m looking to achieve. They’re too clean and accurate. I had thought initially that the figure alone would be enough to activate the composition, but clearly it’s not. I feel like all I’m doing is rendering the figure realistically and then adding motion lines on top, really not very interesting when I think about it.
I’m thinking that I have to stop and re-evaluate where I’m going with these drawings. I just can’t see myself proceeding with the next 48 drawings in this way. My next step will be to print out photographs of these drawings so that I can draw on them and experiment with other options.
Clara Lieu 