As a young artist I went through numerous phases and enthusiasms, the briefest of which, being a desire to master the portrayal of animal-kind. I think my “animal period” lasted about five months in all, but despite its brevity, I still managed to fill several sketchbooks and give myself highly useful reference material for my later professional career.
Sadly, I have since mislaid two of the main sketchbooks, and could only find a handful of pictures as examples for this post. Nevertheless, I think they are sufficiently worthy, and interesting to be reproduced here.
Capuchin Monkey – Pen and Ink Wash – 1981: I spent two or three days at London Zoo studying mostly monkeys, the big cats, and birds. The monkeys were particularly fascinating as they all had distinct personalities and facial expressions. This guy/girl was always alone and sad. I think he/she was in want of a mate, but I can’t be certain. Mother and Child Capuchins – Pen and Ink “linear” – 1995: Fourteen years after those visits to the Zoo in Regent’s Park, I made a small series of highly detailed drawings from some of the better sketches. All sold, and sadly this is the only picture I have on my files from that hugely successful group. There’s little doubt that I could have carved out an extremely lucrative career if I had continued making these drawings, but after about six of them, I couldn’t face doing another. They were painstaking in the extreme, and took many days each to complete, requiring a depth of concentration that drove me half-mad. Cat Studies – Conté – 1981: The zoo was an expensive place to visit, even back in 1981, thus I mostly resorted to studying pets of friends (we had no animals at home) and when out and about in places like pubs. This little girl, whom I seem to recall was called Daisy was no shrinking violet however – hence some my humerous additions to the original sketches.
Make My Day! (British Bulldog) – Pen and Ink Wash – 1982: Meet Harry, who despite the title of the picture was as docile and sweet natured as he appeared.
I don’t know if it’s the same today, but when I was at art school it was constantly drummed into us students to carry a sketchbook, “always and everywhere”, and to use it frequently. For some reason, this was a habit I found hard to acquire, and thus an early indicator perhaps that I never had the mentality of the true artist.
Bar Props 9 – pencil sketch
It wasn’t so much the issue of self-discipline – I had plenty of that when sufficiently motivated to a given (normally non-art-related) task – it was the somewhat ironic fact that I felt that sketching was more of a barrier to, than an absorber of, the world around me.
Bar Prop 8 – biro sketch
Perhaps part of my problem was that although only 16 when I started my foundation course at Harrow School of Art, I was already an experienced photographer and had become used to having a camera with me much of the time. Ditching my elegant Nikon, and its power to capture everything I saw at the press of a button for a sketchpad and assorted, often unwieldy drawing implements seemed a retrograde and pointless drudgery.
Thoughtful Couple – biro sketch
Of course, deep-down, I recognised the wisdom of my tutors’ insistence on me interpreting the world I saw through the point of a drawing implement as a fundamental prerequisite for learning the language of picture-making. Yet I remained resistant for a long time into my art education; a bit like the reluctant music student longing to skip his/her daily four hours of practising scales. Eventually however, although never an enthusiast, by the time I started my degree at Saint Martin’s I’d found a way to become a regular sketcher.
Bar Leaner – Conté sketch
The “way” I’d landed upon was to lubricate the grind of the actual sketching by means of large doses of simultaneous self-gratification and self-stimulation in the form of pints of my favourite beverage at the many hostelries adjacent to my Soho-based art school.
Bar Thinker – biro sketch
In authentic and time-honoured tradition, I found wiling away hours of time in saloons rewarding both sensually and artistically. And while my fellow pub punters may not have offered up images as exotic as those that greeted the French Post Impressionists in the clubs and dives of 19th century Paris, they did nevertheless provide an endless source of unwitting, and thus natural model subjects.
Paper Reader – Conté sketch
Needless to say, this element of my nascent art career necessitated a significant chunk of my student grant. How good or not this investment was, is a matter for debate. From my, admittedly biased point of view, all these years later, the examples shown here don’t look too bad, and if nothing else, they do go to show that even the humble biro, can be an effective artists tool…after a glass or two of fine English ale…
Greasy Lunch – Conté sketch (done in a Soho cafe or “greasy spoon”)
ARKS, ADAM AND AXARQUIA 