[ Author: Carol Peace ]

Wether to paint mountains

 

6th February 2017

The writing seems to be in a poem form but I am not trying to be a poet here. Its just as it comes, in part shaped by the space at the edge of the paper. So in typing it out I have kept it similar, thats all. Some of it makes me cringe when I see it and my naive and basic understandings. It takes me a while to catch on*.  Most of it shouldn’t be shared but I have such a terrible memory and my mind scatters about so it gives me structure to have it written down, in print as it were. Formalised.

 

A4 Drawing Scan 36a –  Wether to paint mountains  – Later hands

 

A figure has certain rules.
A mountain not, its
haphazard.

 

A4 Drawing Scan 38 – Wether to paint mountains – foot drawings x2

 

This is not a casual discussion
these are not casual concerns.
It’s not about blackcurrant or damson.
It’s not a decision about toast
or the everyday.

These decisions are
worried, picked at.
They are buried by work but surface
given the tiniest of light.

A fracture, a glint
and they bubble ferociously.

They worry.

Niggle.

 

Is a valley more exciting than an instep?

A person,
a toe is specific
but there are rules.
It’s not just random shale
and fallen boulders.

I ache as I watch light
glide over a mountain.
Is it the light and the mountain,
or is it the feeling of the light
on the mountain?

My god this person is alive
and so true is it
that this person will
once not be.

Maybe that’s
the difference

The mountain will stay.
Its different everyday
but it will stay.

This foot will not.

 

 

 

So inevitably its about death…. of course.

Thats why its beautiful.
Thats why it makes you cry with the confusion.

 

A4 Drawing Scan 44 – Wether to paint mountains

Today I have found
a mountain in a foot
a rock in a hand
a valley’s flank
in a thigh.

 

A4 Drawing Scan 47 – Wether to paint mountains

So if it’s about showing people beauty.*
if they won’t see it line then maybe try colour.

deep maroon base, yellow bright red

 

 

 

 

*Edgar Degas

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”

 

*Dolly Parton

I’m a little bit slow to catch on

But when I do, I’m caught on

Have a word

 

23rd January 2017
Written at life drawing class

 

A4 Drawing No.18.2 Jan 2017  

writing about drawing

You are hard
and sometimes cruel
but with you I am
the best that I can be.

Not the shiniest, most famous, most admired
but the best of me.

 

 

Back of A4 Drawing No.15 Jan.2 2017

Its all I want to do
now.
Its all I should be
doing.

 

 

A4 Drawing No.16 Jan.2 2017

I have been life drawing since I was about 15 and over all those years I have learnt to be kind to myself, to drawing. I am strict, yes but not so full of self loathing, not so cruel, not so disappointed am I, when I draw. I let myself play, make mistakes, maybe its because I am learning not performing.

Life drawing is a shared experience, a small community all responding to the same object but individual stimuli.

January, after holidays, I am not interested in the colour of an apple.

I just want to draw.

I suffer from terrible loneliness, partly carrying my business alone but isolation hounds me. I have plenty of friends to visit but it’s work I want. Drawing in a community; that energy, makes me happy, makes me kinder to myself, less reproachful. It’s then that I can meet up for a beer and enjoy it. Only then.

 

 

A4 Drawing No.16.2 Jan.2 2017

Be patient.

Don’t be so angry
with yourself and
so full of self
hatred.

Be kinder.
Be more sympathetic.

 

 

A4 Drawing No.17. Jan.2 2017

Stop being
so cruel.

No wonder
your crying
all the time.

The one person
who you are
with all the
time is
mean.

Gives you a
hard time.

Feeds your
guilt.

She makes you
lonely and fills
you with self
loathing.

Please.

Have a word
with her.

 

A4 Drawing No.20 Jan.2 2017

I often say that drawing is mediative, but its not quite, there is way too much dialogue going on.

‘Fuck off’

I can hear my self reproach as my mind drifts to complimenting, confident, or even arrogant thoughts.*

*sometimes you can think, wow, this is going to be a good drawing, or “i am getting good at this, look at me go, and then the drawing shatters around you into fake pride

 

 

 

 

 

A4 Drawing No.22 to 34  Jan.2 2017

No writing, written after

And as the day slips on the voices, thank god, start to quieten. Wether its the work or the talk amongst the group, or the gathering of similar minds, the voices quieten and I just draw.

Drawing Class Barcelona

So as Jesus finishes carrying his cross through town, flanked by masked faces in sinister tall black peaks, 10 of us gather together and circle round a beautiful naked girl, sitting in pain, so we can draw her, I guess we all have our weird faiths and our burdens.

But soon graphite slides like silk over smooth cartridge and my feminist angst subsides, I remember how fond of this I am. It is about sensitivity, respect, the simple act of finding form in space.

Maybe the BDS was too much of a good thing, or maybe it was naïve of me to think you could organize something and enjoy it. But for the past year, my love of life drawing had gone, or maybe it was just resting.