Drawings‘The difficulty in making art is not doing things but getting ready to do things’.
- Constantin Brancusi Alan considers drawing to be the fundamental building blocks for making art. He takes great pleasure from drawing every day, and believes that the process is best begun by plunging in and ‘doing things’. He starts with the thinking process: investigating shape, composition, texture and line; remembering basics but trusting his instincts - and then the drawings begin to flow. But the process demands struggle and persistence, and intense and sensitive observation. He keeps in mind the words of art dealer Rudy Kumon, who said ‘Some people sit on their eyes’. It also demands responsive materials. So Alan uses pencil, pen and ink, and wash in his journals and sketches. For larger works he uses conté or compressed charcoal on paper chosen to give ‘grip’ to the line. Alan constantly refers to the great masters and researches their techniques. He has learned from them that great drawings bring together draughtsmanship and formal underlying structure, the technique fused with meaning, emotion and imagination, creating new exciting viewpoints and perspectives. Alan created a large body of work while in Italy, including both landscape and piazzas; has completed a series of New York cityscapes, and observations of life in other European cities. He recently spent time in the Northern Territory, drawing the ancient desert and has turned his attention to the landscape around his home in north-east Victoria. Nothing escapes the drawing eye: waiters, children playing, hills, shadows, animals, the amusing and the poignant – all spring from the page in Alan’s drawings. |
