These are drawings which I made at Brunswick Heads back around 2004 and 2005, I believe. Honestly, I don't even remember because life seems to fly by like a Japanese Shinkansen!
But, I did make a few thousand of them over two seasons. I had discovered a Japanese pen called Tombo and small drawing pads from Muji and I went crazy. There are mostly all sized 10 X 15 cm.
I like this top one the most. It manifested the graphic unity I was after at the time. And here is my confession: I made these drawings because I was too afraid to paint the sea and skies in colour! That's it. I was too afraid of failure.
I was too aware of the almost ecstatic, ephemeral beauty of these afternoon skies. I thought it was out of reach.
My mind was somehow programmed into this thinking out of an obsessional perfectionist cycle which had had me in its grip since I was a child. Somehow, and miraculously; I wriggled free when I set myself the task of making a painting each evening at dusk. This freed me from the fear of failure on at least the beach, anyway. Fear of failure still lurks its hairy paws elsewhere in my life, but no longer on the beach.
And from the beginning of this adventure a tiny vision began to grow. It sprang up and now seems to have a life of its own.
Often, I feel like an observer.
YPR
Evening Prayer Brunswick heads, oil on canvas board,
27 February, 2021, 25 X 20 cm
The confidence in those beach drawings also pushed me into my drawing trips to Morocco with an easiness to working quickly and travelling light. There too I made thousands of quick drawings in line with my desire to capture life through a devotion to a unified graphic image. It would not be hard to also see my love for Japan in these.
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