TIM BAKER

I was missing Inktober so I invented my own challenge – the 5PM Drawing Challenge. Between 5 and 6pm I do at least one drawing of a minimum of 5 minutes and post it on my Instagram. So far I am on day 9 and just posted day 8, and here are the highlights so far. It’s ranged from ink drawings to charcoal, small pencil drawings to big Posca pieces, still life to interiors of pubs and buses and several Night works.

First was a classic bus piece, like the ones I did for Inktober called ‘Nor Gate’. Drawing on a bus compared to trains is quite hard, especially on the top deck!

Next up was some woodless charcoal studies of John. I’ve not used this large sketchbook before, nor the woodless charcoal – it’s a lot cleaner and gives a sharper line. I like it. Also a few days later I experimented with the Stabilo All pencils in the King’s Arm pub, the graphite one, and the black one in a quick drawing at a favourite restaurant.

More night drawings, this time of the same house I did for #4 but in a long panoramic form, using my favourite the Posca 1MR white fineliner. This is the full width version – those on Instagram haven’t seen this as it insists on cropping very tall or very wide pictures.

Another night drawing/painting again along the Queen’s Promenda- this time of the wintry trees using a marker filled with Jackson’s India Ink. I love the accidental stars in the background. Don’t know where those blotches came from!

Another quick still life drawing – a bottle I intended for one of the Inktober sketches but decided it was too modern and didn’t fit with the other objects. I love the design of this bottle though. Very retro, almost Alphonse Mucha (the bottle design must date from that time if not before, I’ve found posters from 1906 with it on)

And then the last piece I have posted, an abstract drawing called ‘No. Point/Point to Point’ using various markers from ones filled with Indian Ink to my usual Posca and Molotow. I have a history of abstract works but I have given it a rest recently, but as winter comes, I want to get back into that sort of exploratory drawing.

As I put it best over at the Instagram post:

 It might seem random like a doodle, indeed I am fascinated by doodling and subconscious symbology – but no, this was quite a long intentional drawing and indeed I started after 5pm because I got home late.
It’s interesting how my symbols have changed as well. People who have seen my other abstract work will recognise the spirals, crosses and baroque S-curves but unusually for one of these which usually leaves me puzzled I know where various parts are from. You see my abstract work is tied to be representational work and vice versa, it is where I work out my ideas and techniques.

The zig zags are from the recent drawing of rails I posted here via that Bob and Roberta Smith piece I also posted here about process systems. The dots and dashes come from one of the previous 5PM drawings ‘Daddy is Down In The Mine’. Arrows and compasses come from my latest podcast ‘True North’ and that the life drawing model, Rosalyn from last week has a compass tattoo that she was very proud of. And the No/Yes, wordplay is big with me back to my degree days – No. Short for North but also the polar opposites of tbe political climate of Brexit/referenda and Negativland with their True/False album.

You see, not random 🙂 

All told this is a good start to this ongoing challenge, I wanted to keep things loose so I can adapt it to what I am interested in currently, but structured enough that I keep working. I did think of using prompts – I have Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies on my phone and found a site which randomly selects words. But I don’t think I need it for now. The problem isn’t finding inspiration or things to draw or do…it’s making the time for regular drawing and creating.

And unlike Inktober I won’t be posting every single piece on this blog, like this one I will just post the highlights. In future I will be even more selective about what I feature – it’s good to show an insight into my sketchbooks and working…but not everything works.