The experience of drawing

“My work is all about drawing, whether with pencil or brush, wet or dry. I call it liquid drawing because it refers both to the flow of watercolour and my thoughts as I try to let them go.

Drawing is raw and unmediated, the perfect antidote to modern technology. I’m interested in nature because I am part of it. The cycle of the seasons are reflected in constantly transforming plant life. There is always something to inspire me through the year and yet it is the mundane – vegetation and the natural world which fascinates me: it’s always untidy, transitory.

I try to be attentive to an overactive mind that will often get in the way of my intuition. I don’t see nature as something ‘out there’ but rather consider that I am at one with it, trying to remember to be ‘in the moment’ while I draw.

During my degree, I learnt how to draw in a completely new way by copying Chinese and Japanese calligraphy. There is a certain poetic beauty in Oriental pictograms.

There is also a profound truth and reality that can be found through specific ways of working; a discipline and yet, a freedom. Logic within Western education emphasises learning tasks that have resolve or closure, but learning to work slowly and methodically defers closure and changes perception. Deferring closure is a very inspiring way to draw.

Learning to live with constant questions is always challenging. It leads to a search for something ineffable and a quest to understand how my reality can be described through drawing.

Buddhist philosophies will always guide me.”

– Christine