I feel like screaming – I really do.   I am taking one step forward and the same back.   I am now producing interesting drawings with only one problem – I have lost the ability to make them a good likeness.  At the moment I hate this.   I know how to overcome this, it is mechanical and I think it is cheating but I know I can do it.  all I need to do is pop a grid over the picture I am trying to sketch and then it becomes painting by numbers and I just do not want to do this.  The skills I want to master are those that allow me to produce a really interesting drawing whilst at the same time being a good likeness of the subject.

I know I will get there in the end it is just so frustrating at the moment.   Of course this does open up the question of why?  Why do I want to do this?   Well last week the tutor at the drawing class I am taking asked what we want to get out of the class?  It was a throw away question – he seems to do this a lot – but it did get me thinking about what I want to do.   Well at the moment I just want to create a really interesting likeness of a person.   I am not looking for more complicated communication of feelings or the like just make the likeness.  The reason for this is that I see this as being the first step to becoming a good artist.  You cannot really communicate unless you have a clear mastery of what you want to say.  In art this can only be done when you have mastered your medium – otherwise the messages gets lost.   This takes time.  The fortunate thing is that I have the time to do this.

One final thing.  I hate what I produce on the day that I produce it.  However, when I go back in a couple of days or so then things are not so bad.  I don’t know whether this is good or bad it just means my initial judgement should be ignored.
 

Simon Marchini LRPS

Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk

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