Drawing a view of Siena

Siena, as I have mentioned more than once, is one of my favourite cities. It combines variety with consistency in just the right degree. I made a large drawing of the city's core, including the zebra-striped tower of the cathedral and the hulking skeleton of the never completed duomo nuovo. The sightline between the two trees originates at Santa Maria degli Servi, another of Siena's many churches - one I have depicted before.

This is just a detail of the original, which measure around 20" square. You can see the whole thing here, and in situ on instagram.

I used a variety of drawing media, starting with a pencil outline. Then india ink, via brush and dip pen, Pigma micron pens, my beloved Pentel brush pen, and a china marker. The drawing is currently on display at the Locomotive cafe in London, Ontario.

some toes

A snapshot of part of a work in progress...

Transitory things

A snapshot of a drawing still in progress, to be titled Alles Vergāngliche ist nur ein Gleichnis (Everything impermanent is but a parable). It's a line from Goethe's Faust, but it appears in a number of places, not least the tombstone of Max Weber, the great theorist of early capitalism.

The drawing depicts a confrontation between two characters, perhaps of a spiritual or metaphysical nature, that is nonetheless taking place in a setting redolent of advanced materialism.

Rough sketch of the Regent's Canal

Tarragon sometimes uses the iPad to rough out concepts for new work: this is a small digital version of what will be a woodblock print about 18" high.

work in progress

A snapshot of a drawing under way.

2 men smoking

Something to match yesterday's post:

This is a pencil preparatory sketch - the finished work will be in ink and various colour media.

Inez de Castro sketch

A sketch for a new drawing depicting the legend of Inez de Castro. It's a story replete with murder, revenge, desecration, and over-the-top violence. Which is everything I want from a medieval tale.

In the sketch, the lords of Lisboa pay homage to the dead body of Inez, overlooked by the "king still young there beside her." The words are Ezra Pound's, from his Canto XXX.

The drawing is in pencil, and photographed rather than scanned, so please forgive the image quality.

Hopefully less time will elapse between this sketch and the finished version than between the early version and complete drawing of Eurydice, Eurydice.

The Red Gloves

In which a snappy dresser of my acquaintance stops to look at something on McCaul street. I think it's a motorcycle. Whatever it is, it's not in the picture.

It's a drawing done with three colours and many sizes of marker, intended as a design for a future lino- or woodcut. The drawing is about ten inches tall. As a lino, I think it may end up a bit bigger.

I was listening to Mylène Farmer and the Dum Dum Girls while making it. I don't think that really comes through.

students at La Verna

very much a work in progress sketchbook entry - sometimes when I know I don't have time to make a complete drawing I do a quick sketch sketch plus colour notes, so I know what to work with when I return to it. Which in this case I never did.

It shows a few students sitting in the choir stall at La Verna, listening to their professor lecture on St.Francis.

Jess' Bee tattoo

I have a biologist friend who works on plant-insect interactions. A while ago she requested a design for a bee tattoo. I produced two options; a side view:

And also a top view:

I thought a biologist might like to be reminded of the inevitability of death, but apparently I was wrong about that. She did end up using the bee, though.

And because I like bees, I worked out a repeated ornamental design suitable for wallpaper or fabric. It would work nicely on a man's shirt.

A preparatory drawing.

I recently began work on a new finished ink drawing, provisionally entitled Eurydice, Eurydice. This is its central figure, as yet divorced from background, various objects, or even something to sit on.

It's going to be one of those not-quite-a-portrait drawings in which the context of the figure, not the figure itself, is the main subject.
I hope to have it complete in a week or so.

A small sketch

This is a preparatory sketch, done in acrylic, for a large aluminum etching. It's on a dainty piece of canvas, only six by eight inches, which is why the weave is so visible.

The final etching will be about 18 inches tall, and far richer in colour.

Obviously, it's about sex.

an arts and crafts postcard

There's something deeply fascinating about static design. Or if you prefer, ornament. It's an almost content free aesthetic, but one that conveys the sensation of lush richness far more efficiently than figurative or landscape works ever manage.

Architecture, not paper, is the ideal setting for this kind of ornament; things like the Alhambra, Palazzo Ducale, Sagrada Familia or Watts Chapel. Sadly, mainstream contemporary architecture has not employed this approach to visual design since the 30s.

I did this postcard a while ago, under the influence - obviously - of William Morris. It's a bit too glib and symmetrical for my current taste, but it achieves the intended effect.

A preparatory sketch for an oil painting

Tarragon doesn't usually bother with elaborate concept drawings. This one is a bit more free-standing than usual.

Apres Holbein

I had been looking at Holbein's Christ Entombed, and found myself wondering about applying a similar format to some contemporary figures. This is a drawing I prepared at the time.

Sadly, I never managed to fit the completed painting into my schedule. Perhaps it's for the best; ideally, I would have needed to do at least four of them. Stacked above one another on the gallery wall, the effect would have been fairly unsettling.

Another time, perhaps.

The drawing is just shy of life size, on mylar.