traces

ECG paper with fixative, acrylic and ink

after looking at various works the last few weeks certain elements have stuck in my mind

I've wanted to work with some drawings on ECG paper for a while.

It looks so innocuous and saccharine with it's pink hue at a distance.

Lots of my sketchbook doodles are repetitive scribbles often relapsing into heart trace like patterns that meander across the page.

After seeing some of Barbara Hepworths works on gesso covered board I wanted to re-visit a long held image of washing over the paper and using black ink on top.

Where most of my drawing work or printwork stalls is from not having a set image to work with in different mediums. Starting from using the stills from a shapwick heath trip, the bird formations seemed a good point to work from.

Whilst spraying the back of the paper with what I thought was spray mount, large darkened patches of bled blank ink appeared on the paper forming cloud like patterns.

These were like the monoprints I'd done the week before. I liked the watery/organic appearance and decided to work with these pieces instead of chucking them. The mistake seemed to provide as starting point I'd been lacking.

The first image seemed rather twee and tree-shaped so i set about outlining it with ink pen using the squares on the paper.

I've found it really useful on a wednesday morning to stick to drawing as it has helped me relax and stop ruminating about things happening at work, ironically incidents pop up whilst i'm making marks but they go again and it feels useful and therapeutic. Doing something different with paper that I've got ambivalent and negative associations with, a source of alarm or reasurance, is pretty darn useful aswell.

Obviously referencing's work, agnes martin's grids.