A Little Conversation...

A Little Conversation..., originally uploaded by Donna Nicholson-Arnott.

Via Flickr:
...this one's with Jim at the Old Mearns Gallery,
2a Howie Buildings,
Mearns Road,
Clarkston,
Glasgow,
G76 7ET

:)

Some date

Some date, originally uploaded by Donna Nicholson-Arnott.

Via Flickr:
Drawn for the We Draw august team challenge on etsy.com.
I can honestly say I would not have made this one without the challenge. Really, I'm not even remotely sure where this came from in my head.
But there she is, sad little mule-clown. Waiting. Waiting; waiting for that long-overdue Harlequin. I hope he doesn't become irrecoverable...

my heart's witnesses hide

I slowly continue to make these. I should probably get a move on and make more, but there's something so meditative about the process. It's tense making the initial drawing onto the prepared balsa; balsa is soft so there's an impression of the drawing on the wood as well as the graphite drawing, and errors are not really correctable in situ. I have sanded back one awful drawing when I got home once, and re-inked it for next time. But I'd rather just get it right and move on to new bit most of the time. I add all the colour and details when I'm back in the studio. This one ended up with some words because there was space at the top compositionally, and I had some bits of Browning on my desk from fiddling with the clownery, and they were catching my eye. I inked it's edges black, because I was short of white, and wondered what it would look like darker.

This one is for sale in the new Far Dot Shop.

Working on balsa.

I've been working with balsa, it's bigger than paper somehow; can be inked up, sanded, made smooth, drawn on, inked again, collaged on. It stands on its own. These two balsa blocks hint at mini canvases for me. It seems to change the modality of the drawings.

My work sometimes occupies a frustrating no man's land between applied and pure. All the work I make that doesn't have anything to do with another text feels to me like it sits in some space between them, not really one thing or the other in the world. I don't think I should worry about this. I should probably just get on with it.

Jerwood

It was June. June is about the Jerwood Drawing Prize submission. In some ways, all my drawing endeavour centres itself around this point. Every year, every June now is about the Jerwood. The first time I submitted something was in 2004, the year I graduated. I put in a life drawing, and was rejected. I didn't submit again until 2007, when my little drawing called Trio made it to the finals. Every year since, but no more finals.

It had been a crazy eight months, November to May this time, so I'm pleasantly surprised I had anything to submit to the Jerwood this year. Neither made it to the finals. They're still two of the drawings I've been most happy with recently. Hey ho.

The drawing at the top is an extension of some of my recent collage work, with collage worked on top of collage. I went out especially to buy the shade of yellow ink for the hat. It seemed to me there were many different narratives that could be placed upon that hat in this image.

I had been stuck in a corner near the end of an All the Young Nudes night, so some of the other drawers got into the second drawing. Again I was toying with exclusion in this one. And the blanket was magenta pink, not red like it is here.