LINES

I'm putting my drawing aside for now. I think it's finished, though this decision is often the most difficult one to make. Starting a new piece is often fretful, I'm addled by choice and fearful that I've made the wrong decision, from then on, if the decision was right, there are ups and downs, sometimes a horrible feeling of panic grips my throat and either makes it difficult for me to keep still (I'm up and down like a Yoyo, fetching a can of pop from the fridge, feasting on my fingernails), or else I freeze and can only sit looking at what I've done. A radio feature becomes so fascinating that I have to turn it up and give it my whole attention, though of course, my eyes are drawn back to the sticky surface of my drawing.


All that's over for this piece, I think. I've decided to leave the white areas of the foreground tree and the two trees at the extreme left and right of the composition white, for a breathing space, compositional silence.

Someone once told me when I was a student that it can be wise to juxtapose a detailed or highly defined area of work with an area that is more loosely worked. In those days my work tended to be abstract or abstracted, but I'm begining to realise how valuable this piece of advice was and how I should bear it in mind when bringing a piece of figurative work to a conclusion.

I'm going to indulge myself now in a Quorn sandwich (garnished with pickled cabbage with a side order of mixed pickles - a feast as welded to Christmas for me as Santa Claus and Handel).

Lines...

...and a blot on the landscape...


Finally, I wish whoever reads my final blog posting for 2009 a very HAPPY NEW YEAR.