south beach still life 2021

Series of 20 drawings started over Christmas 2020, and completed during the second Covid-19 lockdown.

At the height of the pandemic - I had the strong urge to draw, to get away from computer screens, to find escape from teaching remotely via Teams, Zoom and Skype. The physicality of being able to draw with pencil on paper every evening, and to have the opportunity to draw anything at all - felt like a release, and helped to maintain sanity and to keep me connected and grounded.

Fortunate to live opposite a harbour and a stony beach, daily walks provided a rich source of flotsam and jetsam that could be arranged and rearranged with other material. An old type box served as a suitable compositional container for these treasures, and features in all twenty of the drawings. As the evenings lengthened, and as Spring approached, so it became desirable to introduce some colour as well.

The process of drawing during lockdown, gave me the excuse to rethink what I was doing in my work. Whilst there is still connection with language and calligraphy, in hindsight these drawings helped to point to new directions in work made since.