Working on more drawings

I did go back to the drawings again just recently, darkening and lightening and fiddling and fiddling so that now there are 6 just about finished plus two more on the go.

This method of drawing is clearly not economically viable but it is somehow compelling and so I add and subtract, layer upon layer until I am happy. If I calculated price according to hours spent the total would be crazy. Given that I can’t break the obsession to draw in this style then I just have to accept that the returns on the sold work can only be trifling and be grateful that our household does not rely on me to pay the bills.

(eg  above of the slow process, building up depth ..... as you can see, the area in the bottom left is at a more advanced stage in the layering, see image below).

A friend recently said that she liked the idea of the drawings taking up whole walls. I did consider the idea. I had visions of myself beavering away like the monks with their illuminated manuscripts, my back becoming increasingly bent, the whiskers growing on my chin while the hair on my head hair thinned as the years unfolded and I stuck doggedly to my HB pencil, my pencil eraser and my tissue, fiddling and layering endlessly as I inched my agonised way across a wall sized piece of paper.

     (the second new drawing using the same sort of patterns, still with any more "layers" to work up)

Hmm, perhaps this is not a project I should embark on …. It might be more sensible just sticking to the much more manageable size of 40 x 40 cms per drawing.