RESTLESS ENERGY, SPEEDY SKETCHES AND RISK-TAKING (Nearly all of the sketches here are incomplete and rapidly made – often in 20 minutes or so. They’re notes that try to capture something of a likeness, and often the movement of the head is not compensated for. What might start out as, say, a profile could end up combined with a three-quarters view – a trick that the Cubist’s often played and one that I find helps show ‘where a face goes’ more than a photo ever could. Sometimes I’ll slightly distort and exaggerate features too.)
Drawing children is a tough call – they just can’t keep still!	I don’t like to encourage them to watch TV, but occasionally when they do, I’ll make a sketch.	With this one I reckon on about 5 seconds before some pretty big deal shift ...
...of an arm or leg — or the whole lot — (I’ve timed it) which is why I have so few of her.	Often they’ll move and then after a while, come back to the same position. But like as not they’ll just get up and...GO!	You need to be quick. One way is to use the ‘blind contour’ or ‘eyes-off’ method. (Rodin was a great exponent of this technique.)
So you look at the subject and draw without looking at the paper. With practise, you can — by trailing your little finger on the paper and using it as a kind of pantograph — tell how far your hand is travelling. Sure you get a few lines in the wrong place...		...but more often than not you’ll capture the spirit with a fluidity that you could not by drawing conventionally. It’s exciting!
In the end you have to look and that’s when you can make a few adjustments. But I don’t like to erase lines (not that you can with ink).	I prefer to keep going with what’s in front of me — even if it’s a little inconsistent with what’s gone earlier.	Somehow it seems more sincere, even if — as is often the case —it leads to a slightly weird outcome. But there’s good weird and there’s bad weird!
I suppose I’m hoping for something that somehow gives a sense of the passage of time, and by doing so, turns what is a frustrating activity, into a creative one.	After all, if you want a photographic likeness, you might as well take a photo. I believe drawing should be risky. I mean the consequences of failing aren’t in the same ballpark as a pilot, surgical or mountaineering error. I hope that by drawing on the edge, there’s just a chance of creating something with a peculiar and fragile beauty.
I find it helpful to spend periods using only monochrome (Indian ink, say), or a little bit of greyscale (pencil, say) as a kind of discipline. (Though monochrome is great in its own right.)	Then when you do come to use colour it’s a bit like ‘taking off the handbrake’ – you colour with real verve. In fact it can be a bit wild – but I don’t mind that.	These very quick sketches (again with the challenge of constant movement ever-present) were made using felt tip pen washed over waterproof gel pen.
▲ E. Gel pen.	▲ K. Gel pen.	▲ K. Gel pen.
▲ E. Gel pen.	▲ K. Biro.	▲ K. Biro.
▲ E. Watercolour over biro.	▲ E. Watercolour over biro.	▲ K. Watercolour over biro.
▲ K. Biro.	▲ K. Biro.	▲ K. Biro.
Another way to convey the passage of time is simply to draw and redraw a subject and then compare and contrast. But beware, this can be scary!	I don’t know many people who’ll readily agree to sit for a drawing — unless they’re being paid for it or sitting for a commission. I know I’m not at all keen.	So these self-portraits were made as a result of the usual necessity — there being no-one else around at the time, which was just as well!
This second lot of six ‘warts and all’s’ were made some twenty-five + years later. Self-portraits often have an added intensity about the eyes because they necessarily show the subject looking carefully — scrutinizing, even.	I like to use biro because of its subversive, ‘anti-art’ connotations. It isn’t a traditional material. But it is a tool of our times – I like biro’s harsh incisiveness and the way it drops ink.	Here’s a nice neat study using Indian ink and acrylic paint on the slippery surface of the rather chemically-unwholesome ground, foamboard. It’s a flatteringly poor likeness.
This is a very loose study in watercolour and gouache. Self-portraits are usually made by looking into a mirror. But people’s faces aren’t symmetrical. (For example, one eye is often higher than the other.)	We see ourselves in reverse to the way other people see us. I guess we only see ourselves as others do in photos. I think the shock is akin to the one we get when we listen to a recording of our own voice – which sounds nothing like the way we usually hear ourselves!	Think ‘portrait’ and you might think ‘oils’. But I like watercolour. Its unpredictability makes it hard to control and especially unsuitable for painting ‘live’ (which is what I prefer). It’s unfashionable but exciting!
▲ Rapid sketch of Becky —watercolour over gel pen.	▲ Black crayon sketch of Becky.	▲ Rapid study of Leyla. Watercolour over gel pen.
▲ Rapid biro sketch of Sarah.	▲ Sarah smirking —black crayon.	▲ Gel pen sketch of Hans.
▲ Biro sketch of Mrs Baker looking sleepy.		▲ Gel pen sketch of Angel.
▲ Gel pen sketch of Angel.	▲ Gel pen sketch of Hayley.	▲ Pen and watercolour wash sketch of Richard.
▲ Hayley — watercolour over gel pen.	▲ Becky — gel pen.	▲ Becky — gel pen.
▲ Carrie - watercolour over gel pen.	▲ Jenny — gel pen.	▲ Carrie - watercolour over gel pen.
▲ Stacey - gel pen.	▲ K. Watercolour over gel pen	▲ Becky — gel pen.
▲ Chantelle - gel pen.	▲ Jono – watercolour over gel pen with mono-printing on June 2011.	▲ Sara – watercolour over gel pen July 2011.
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