It took me quite a while to come to dancers as a subject for drawing and this is rather surprising, as I have always enjoyed trying to show people in movement.
The works I will show at the festival have been made directly from watching dancers dancing in front of me, without any reference to photographs. This is important, as it requires a particular sort of looking and a particular way of working.
A photograph would record very accurately one moment and if you drew from it you could copy and consider each individual shape at leisure.
This is impossible when working from dancers in movement. It is amazing how rapidly even slow figures fly by. I work at great intensity, looking hard and trying to remember. Often I am searching for a similar movement so I can add to the beginnings I have made.
Details have to be passed over in the rush to make the most economical, expressive gesture. In fact that is all I can concentrate on—putting down energetic lines flowing through the movement, suggesting posture, twists, stretching, compression and disposition of weight.
Often I try to use long lines, extending through the whole figure, from the toes to the fingertips or the top of the head or even right through two dance partners.
When I am doing it, it seems like a ridiculous task—quite impossible! Yet I think the results suggest dance as an event in continual change.
The lines and marks on the page form their own dance and are supposed to buzz in the eye making a moving pattern with its own rhythm and speed.
