(drawing for painting. 1999.    catalogue no.239)

I worked late into the evening on Wednesday carefully spoiling the little painting that had been going quite well.

Yesterday, Thursday, was a rubbish day, there was little light in the morning so I kicked about the house until I decided to build a table under my shelf for Still Lives. I’ll be looking down onto my subjects on the tabletop.

I begin each piece of work with a drawing and almost the first decision I have to make is about the picture plane.

The picture plane is like an imaginary sheet of glass between the artist and the subject.

Working on still lives on shelves the picture plane will often be a vertical plane (that is parallel to the wall) but if I’m looking down onto objects on a table the picture plane will be tilted, perhaps to 45 degrees to the wall (and if I were drawing my feet it could even be horizontal, the same plane as the floor).

Once I have a picture plane I establish a vertical that is bisected by a Horizonatal at the centre of the composition.

I’ll often draw a horizontal and a Vertical line onto the wall behind my still life.

If the picture plane is parallel to the wall (that’s to say if I’m examining things on a shelf up at somewhere up near my shoulder height) I’ll establish a horizontal line on the wall at my eye level.

If I‘m looking down at objects on a table the picture plane will be tilted, the horizontal will be well below my eye level perhaps amongst the objects on the top of the table.

The Vertical and Horizontal lines are important in the construction of the drawing because they are the only lines that will not bend.

A vertical that occurs on the central Vertical is the only vertical in the composition that will not distort, the same is true for a horizontal occurring along the Horizontal. I can measure along the Horizontal and Vertical lines and plot these positions onto the horizontal and Vertical in my drawing.

I’ve been pouring through piles of drawings and this very tight plotted drawing of bottles from eighteen years ago shows nicely what I’m trying to describe. My picture plane was probably vertical. The Horizontal is above the top of the paper. My vertical drops through the tallest bottle. Look at the beer bottle (with a stag’s head on the label) and the Perrier bottle; all of the vertical lines to the left and right of it distort towards the centre as they descend.

I find it hard to break down my working method into bite size bits but I hope that all this has made sense.