My line drawings

As mentioned in earlier posts, I wished to make line drawings to stimulate a crowd. I wanted to take an approach which meant that the viewer was not drawn to any particular figure, but was taken with the crowd itself as a whole. This is because I wanted to focus on the crowd itself as a trigger for panic; the nature or assemblage of the crowd being irrelevant.

 

I experimented with different materials when I began, using different papers; sugar paper, newsprint, tracing paper, card... as well as using different drawing materials such as chalks, charcoal, ballpoint pen, marker, pastels, biros...

 

The results are as follows...

  

To capture the body of the crowd, I postioned myself in various corridors and corners of the college, blind drawing what I saw as people passed by me. I was really interested in creating a depth to the crowd, the layering involved. (In a previous post I have photographed the corridors in which I undertook this task, as well as including the sketches which resulted.)

 

I discovered that ballpoint pen on tracing paper (seen in the largest image here, and the portrait above it) looked the best as the contrast was striking and as such, the clarity was greater meaning the crowd looked more daunting.

 

 

 

I now wish to make a series of these sketches, again drawing what I see, using blind drawing techniques, letting the pen flow naturally onto the page in continuous line. These sketches will be done from the same spot, each drawing made within the same time span. Perhaps there will be ten, twenty, maybe more. The aim is to complete these within short periods of time, measuring and sketching the people who pass through my line of vision, meaning the movement and to-and-fro of the crowd is captured. Perhaps some sketches will comprise of blank pages, others brimming with figures, showing the variation in the use and occupancy of the space.

 

My current thoughts are to compile a comic strip from this series, documenting the varying, ever-changing crowd, then putting it into movie maker and making an animation from it. It then occured to me during a lecture that it might be good to add sound to accompany the series if I do indeed make it into an animation strip. Distressing or even annoying sounds which one would immediately shy to or avoid, scrunch up their features and frown at, could be a good accomplice to it. The reaction generated by the sound and the fact that the viewer would be compelled to avoid the piece as a result would stimulate a similar reaction to an anxiety sufferer/agoraphobe as the crowd itself would be grim and smothering.