Category: Youth

Rummaging through a Drawer

16/9/2013

I was quite taken aback a week ago when I was asked to attend an interview and told to take with me "any references and certificates you may have"....

I had not been asked to produce my assorted O's and A's and my Diploma from the University of Malta in ages. I searched high and low (mostly low - the lower forgotten drawers) but after an hour or two of fruitless rummaging through drawer after drawer I had targeted all the likely - and some less likely - places, but drew only one huge hollow blank. It was only some hours later that my dear wife thought of the one huge drawer just underneath the bed....the elephant-of-drawers in the room. Yep there they were in all their yellowed glory. But more interesting were a few drawings I unearthed in this forgotten well....drawings of youth really...full of angst, tension, anxiety...the sort of stuff I am not really up to any more these days but which I still look upon with some loving.

I can hardly remember how these were done - most probably an assortment of inks and I definitely used wax candles to get the interesting effects. Some are dated (mostly 1985) and some are not...and none are titled. Enjoy!

Undated and untitled - but I guess the inspiration comes from the cover of Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures...

Undated landscape - this must be countryside outside Rabat

Figure dated 1985 - wild guess is an Egon Schiele influence

A variation of the landscape further up with imaginery telegraph poles thrown in - and I am sure the Dire Straits hit was the influence on this one....loved the song then...and still do somewhat

I think this is a copy of mine of a very early Picasso - something the master had done before his teens.
I was twenty four when I did this...further comment is superfluous.

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A few more early drawings...

17/1/2013

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I hate the time when I am not working on a "proper" drawing - something that takes up a couple or more weeks from start to finish...a drawing I can mull upon while building bit by bit. It's that time right now so I doodle and think until something crops up and I have a work-in-progress to look forward to a couple of evenings a week at least.

To beat this boring waiting period I scanned a few more early drawings - yeah and I haven't posted anything here recently either so...

An old sketch this one - must be the time I first read A Clockwork Orange...

Shipyard worker - sketch from 1987 or thereabouts.

Woman out shopping - I don't think I ever developed this idea further...

The Wizard of Marrakech - a drawing from 1987 - the only time I visted Morocco. I was struck by the colors and smells of this amazing country and the city of Marrakech in particular. I did some sketches while there
and later developed a market scene from the various drawings, This remains a favourite drawing.

Untitled drawing also from 1987. Nothing came of this.

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Precocious Drawings of Youth – Part Three

29/2/2012

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Here is another series of drawings dating from the years 1983 and 1984 – nearer to the time that I changed my style almost completely and almost overnight. (See the blog entry from August 2011 entitled Between the Eyes for details)

This time I picked on drawings which are stylistically related – they are all monochromatic and all involve the use of heavy black lines. These days I usually build dark shadows by a million strokes of a finer pen but the thick black lines have a language all to themselves – at least this is what I’d like to think.

The first drawing is called Destructive Force No.1 and I am fairly sure it is the end result of a series of idle doodling. I have said elsewhere that I consider doodling a great way to exercise and unwind the mind and yes, the hand too. I still believe that.

The second drawing is Consolation dating from 1983. This was a theme I returned to more than once then. The origins of the image owe a lot to Edvard Munch and the Appiani grave at Genoa – famously featured on Joy Division’s Closer album cover.

I actually exhibited a version of this drawing the first time I exhibited publicly. The exhibition was cheekily named Wirja Bla Isem (Untitled Exhibition) and was held in 1985 by what was at the time a group of close knit friends embarking on their baptism of fire in the local, miniscule art scene. Some of us in that group have labored on… Lawrence Buttigieg is now a well known portraitist…Ray Azzopardi is a brilliant wood sculptor…Lawrence Attard carries on the tradition of fine stone carving in churches and homes…Tony Briffa still produces exquisite ceramics in his studio in Denmark.

The next drawing is called Okapi even if it looks more like a giraffe to me. I guess I liked the word okapi better. It’s also probably the least morose drawing in this lot!

The morosity quickly returns in the next drawing – The Watchers. The idea may have been of people in hiding or afraid of the outer world beyond their self-imposed confines – but I can only hazard a guess here. It was intended as a first sketch for a finished drawing which never materialized.

Next drawing is Monument Y – I don’t know why it’s called that but again the origin is likely doodling with architecture in mind.

Last is the Old Clown. Clowns are nearly always depicted as somewhat sad figures in pictorial art and I guess I tend to think so too. This old, sagging clown fits the stereotype nicely.

Destructive Force No.1 - 1983

Consolation - 1983

Okapi - 1983

The Watchers - 1984

Monument Y - 1984

Old Clown - 1984

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Precocious Drawings of Youth – Part Two

23/2/2012

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I have always been awestruck by extraordinary architecture and I have drawn my ideas for a better (or more fearsome) looking world at times too. Included in this small second batch of drawings are an example of each vision...the playful naïve lighthouse and the drawing entitled The Ministry of War. This last is probably a residue left in my head after reading George Orwell’s 1984. The drawing is appropriately dated from that year too.

I drew many landscapes back then too and did many outdoor sketches which I later reworked at home – with my imagination reinventing the colors to suit the mood.

Included here is a sketch of a country road at Mizieb. The other landscape is a strange one, almost an abstract really and one I recall I was inordinately proud of at the time too! It is entitled Bloody Landscape and the inspiration here is very likely T.S.Eliot’s strange poem The Wasteland – a work whose mood and language I have always been fascinated with but never quite understood anyway.

The last drawing here is a Mother and Child from 1985. I have done numerous drawings on this theme (in cartoon form too) and this is one of my favorites, probably because of its strong lines but also the “accidental” nature of the drawing. Some wax was definitely used in this one. I think there are strong thematic influences here from Henry Moore and Munch – both of whose works I strongly admired back then.

The Ministry of War - 1984

Mizieb Landscape - Undated but probably 1984

Bloody Landscape - 1984

Beacon - 1985

Mother and Child - 1985

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Precocious Drawings of Youth – Part One

21/2/2012

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I have not always drawn the funny, ridiculous or absurd…in fact I think I was a very serious minded lad in my younger days... an angry young so and so fed constantly on a diet of Pink Floyd, Joy Division, The Cure, The Smiths…I think you get the post teenage angst thingy!

I have quite a collection of drawings I did in my early twenties and I will be uploading a few here from time to time…. I will also try to arrange them by theme, or stylistically if that fails.

So here’s a tentative first batch of drawings … all between twenty-five and thirty years old and practically antiques in their own right! What that says about the artist is another thing altogether…

A short description of each is in order I guess, n’est ce-pas?

Edinburgh Castle 1981 – I remember my first trip abroad in 1981. I took my first ever flight to London on the afternoon of Princess’s Diana’s wedding. The three-week trip took us up to Scotland and I did a thumbnail sketch of Edinburgh Castle which I later drew again in this sketch.

Wied Liemu 1981 – I was always carrying a miniscule sketchbook around in those days and the formula here is exactly as above – rough sketch on site and drawing at home. Still love this one.

Battersea Power Station 1984 – I actually drew this one on site on one of my frequent visits to London in those early Air Malta seriously-discounted-tickets days (long, long gone…). I was of course familiar with this now famous edifice from Pink Floyd’s Animals album. Always considered this building as a temple to energy and I guess it was in fact designed with something like that in mind…

Addolorata Cemetery 1984 – Also drawn on site from the edge of Garibaldi Road. I also remember clearly I was in the company of Raymond Azzopardi (now an accomplished and respected wood sculptor) when I did this.

Wied Liemu 1984 – A reworking of the 1981 drawing. I was here using a technique involving non-permanent ink and wax. The wax (not melted!) was actually a candle with which I treated the paper before giving the paper itself a wash. I like the effect created – but for the life of me I cannot remember who taught me this….

Beirut 1984 – Same technique as in the previous drawing but with a totally different subject. The civil war in Lebanon was raging at the time and this drawing may have been inspired by a news photo, but again too much time has passed and I do not quite remember how the image originated.

Self Portrait 1985 – Talk about precocious drawings. Enough said!

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Rummaging through a Drawer

A few more early drawings...

Precocious Drawings of Youth – Part Three

Precocious Drawings of Youth – Part Two

Precocious Drawings of Youth – Part One

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