works on paper

Selected drawing projects

Everything I do begins with making marks on paper, whether it is notebooks, sketchbooks, scraps pf paper, either writing or drawing.

There are a series of drawing works made on a specific paper. These have a generic title of Page-specific.

I found some large sheets of paper in a skip in 1988. It was the perfect surface, shiny and strong and I could cut through different layers into the paper.

I researched and eventually found a wholesale supplier. I have been working on the same paper since 1988.

Occasionally I cut the paper to a specific size, but usually I accept the given size of 128 cm 90 cm. I like the idea of a given - something I take for granted. I feel one of the common threads of my work is this acceptance that the site, whether it be a building or a piece of paper comes with an existing set of circumstances. These situations are the material I work with.

The method I use on this particular paper is almost completely the same since 1988. The paper itself is a tough industrial kind that I buy direct from the manufacturer. Its usually for printing high gloss images. This means it is coated and has a shiny water resistant material.

I pencil in a drawing first, then using an etching tool scratch into the pencil marks. Sometimes I cut a layer of the paper away. This exposes the fibre beneath. 

I then rub oil stick into the scratched and exposed areas. The next method is erasure. I may leave the oil on the paper for a few weeks or minutes - the kind of line that I get depends on this process and also on the erasure with white spirit.

I have different levels of control, the weight of my hand, the speed, the amount of white spirit are all variables.
Sometimes I scratch on to the oiled areas.

But I use other types of paper as well, from rag to tracing. The most recent works are made on the amazon packing paper.