Self Portrait with Chicken

Saturday, February 15, 2020

Another work in my series of abstracts in which I was experimenting with eliminating skilled marks from my drawings. It began as a panel covered uniformly in charcoal, which I took to my neighbour’s and placed on the ground in their chook shed. A random erasure took place when seed was cast on the surface. The process took about ten minutes.

 

I spent the next six months working on the tonal balance of the drawing, while trying to avoid any new marks or erasures. Eventually some figuration suggested itself and I decided to go with it, something I’d avoided doing in the other drawings. It was then glazed in several layers over a week.

 “Self Portrait with Chicken” 900x600

Two steps in the process, starting with the chicken’s contribution -

 

After six months of tentative drawing -