Wm Newman
Fine Art
Artist's Statement
These small pen-and-ink still lifes depict the chance compositions that briefly come together in the course of our everyday activities. I wanted the style of the drawings to reflect the casual way in which we see these subjects floating on the edges of our awareness. Using only a very minimal pencil sketch as a guide, I try to preserve the feel of a sketch with an improvised free-form approach, sort of like jazz.
The stuff in my drawings is not consciously arranged but rather just happens to fall into place. I find these seemingly unpromising compositions much more challenging and, at the same time, more productive as subject matter than if they were set up.
Working out of doors, it soon became clear, was unsuitable. I must find a substitute for my customary habit of working directly from the subject. Photographs allowed me the luxury of hunkering down for the long haul, much as I had done with the still lifes, unaffected by changes in time, light, weather, seasons, or by low flying birds…. Eventually I came to treat the photograph as the subject, the source of inspiration rather than merely a source of information.
PEN & INK
