My worst moments invariably come when I have finished a piece of work and am stuck on what to do next. This invariably sends me into a flurry of manic doodling...exploring figures...poses...ideas, and normally takes two or three days of aimless sketching until something clicks and an idea starts taking shape.
My last flurry of doodling (thoughtfully indulged in during breaks from my previous drawing) produced this sketch among others ...I thought it was an interesting pose but leading exactly to where? Somehow the visual became connected in my subconscious with recent media stories about Ireland's notorious Magdalene Laundries and more specifically the gruesome discovery of nearly 800 children's remains in a septic tank. From there it was just a small step to linking the image with child abuse in general and more specifically child abuse by persons entrusted with the care of children. A horrible scenario but one we are all aware happens all over the world. In our little corner of it too...
Did this sketch start to paint the picture I wanted? Well it was just a line drawing and definitely required some atmosphere. A dark one. So on to step two, a less rigid rendering in ball-point...
My last flurry of doodling (thoughtfully indulged in during breaks from my previous drawing) produced this sketch among others ...I thought it was an interesting pose but leading exactly to where? Somehow the visual became connected in my subconscious with recent media stories about Ireland's notorious Magdalene Laundries and more specifically the gruesome discovery of nearly 800 children's remains in a septic tank. From there it was just a small step to linking the image with child abuse in general and more specifically child abuse by persons entrusted with the care of children. A horrible scenario but one we are all aware happens all over the world. In our little corner of it too...
Did this sketch start to paint the picture I wanted? Well it was just a line drawing and definitely required some atmosphere. A dark one. So on to step two, a less rigid rendering in ball-point...
Here's the rough sketch, a bit more defined, the story told a bit better. It's a dark night, a storm is raging outside and the child clings to the adult for support. What happens next is immaterial but I think the ingredients are there for something less than innocent to take place. A tableau I find interesting, menacing too.
Here is an almost "complete" sketch I can work upon. My gut feeling is that this will take me some time and I will have to restrict the palette to a few colours with dark hues dominating. Without sounding perverse I feel that this will be a work I will enjoy doing. It is a newish subject for me even if I stumbled on the idea quite by accident. But then I have always believed that random doodling is priceless and really opens doors to ideas which would otherwise be difficult to think up. Subjects suggest themselves through doodling.
Here is an almost "complete" sketch I can work upon. My gut feeling is that this will take me some time and I will have to restrict the palette to a few colours with dark hues dominating. Without sounding perverse I feel that this will be a work I will enjoy doing. It is a newish subject for me even if I stumbled on the idea quite by accident. But then I have always believed that random doodling is priceless and really opens doors to ideas which would otherwise be difficult to think up. Subjects suggest themselves through doodling.
Satisfied with my sketch (I reckon it is enough to go on) I now start on the work proper...a few (and more than a few) hours of "blacking in" the paper with pen strokes, using just black ink dispensed from a single 0.13 (mm) pen.
Because the pen has such a fine line the inking in is a slow process....more so as I know this will be a dark picture and will therefore require thousands upon thousands of strokes. But in the meantime it gives me the chance to look and assess my work as I go along. This is very preliminary work in fact. Getting a feel of it is what it's all about really.
I feel that getting the lightning bolt right will be pivotal to the success or otherwise of this work so I start immediately on this area of the drawing and introduce Prussian Blue around the bolt.
This is more of a reference for myself and will (hopefully) help me gauge and control the darkness outside the window. A visual reference if you wish... For actual lightning reference I am using a couple of random pictures from the internet - most of the time I do not look at them but now and then one does feel the need to have a little peep again...
Having completed the stormy sky with the single bolt cutting through, I am quickly realizing this will be a far more time-consuming piece than usual. To get the level of darkness required I needed to be more than generous with my pen strokes...plenty and plenty of them.
Still it is a satisfying experiment up to now. Next I did the "landscape" outside the window - basically a mix of green, blue sepia and black - and am now starting on the window edges themselves.
I am also slowly darkening the shadows... initially behind the two main characters in order to bring them forward so to speak...
Still it is a satisfying experiment up to now. Next I did the "landscape" outside the window - basically a mix of green, blue sepia and black - and am now starting on the window edges themselves.
I am also slowly darkening the shadows... initially behind the two main characters in order to bring them forward so to speak...
Since I now have to start colouring the rest of the drawing I have gone back to the rough sketch I did at the beginning and am trying to pencil in a colour scheme. Roughly yellow and sepia for the wall, grey to black for the man's vestment, a dirtyish pink for the girl's night dress and yellow for her hair. Subdued flesh tones for the skin. (Pic below)
Work in progress on the drawing with the working sketch in the background
The background now more or less completed and I start to tackle the figures...
In detail...the window and the male figure. I am using black and violet for the cassock.
The frightened child in close-up
And finally, twelve days after starting out, "Storm" is looking more or less finished. I must admit I am quite satisfied with the result. My only dilemma is actually when to stop but I feel that stopping here is just about right. The image, though with a hint of menace about it, is also fairytale-like - even if the tale remains a dark one.
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