Passage Of Time

This is the latest work that is based on my 'Girl' themed art.  This project started at the end of 2013 with a series of drawings and paintings based on the face of a girl otherwise known as me in 1979.  I think back to my childhood a lot these days because I find it unsettling how long ago it was.  Time really has flown and changed.  I see films made at the end of the 1970s and I think about life then.  It was another world.  I suppose that is what happens when one gets older (and older).  I was born in Portsmouth and came up to Manchester in 1977.  I have a very good long term memory (not very good short term) which means that I remember clearly moving from Portsmouth to Longsight in Manchester.  I did not want to move 'up north' because I had images in my mind of two up two down rows of depressing terraced houses and dirty back alleys.  Longsight fulfilled all of my worst nightmares and more.  The area still suffered from thick smogs because it was still very industrial and near the centre of Manchester which was full of working mills.  On smog days one would stand outside with a scarf wrapped around my face (so that the particles from the pollution weren't breathed in).  I remember putting my hand out in front of me and it disappeared into the smog.  I couldn't see my feet.  On one occasion I and many other children stayed late into the evening at our nursery long after we should have been picked up by our carers because the smog was so thick the buses had been cancelled due to the lack of visibility.  Times have changed in that regard for the better.  This drawing has developed from my earlier drawing 'Girl' (2014).  I have been using fine line pens with coloured pencil and/or gouache paint more and more recently.  I thought it would be interesting to use these materials to revisit the theme of 'Girl' and see how I have developed or not in the two years since my earlier drawing.  I've focussed on a different section of the face in this latest drawing, with some more of the face shown (rather than just half of it as can be seen in 'Girl').

Passage Of Time, pen drawing and coloured pencil, A2 (2016)

 

Here is my earlier drawing from two years ago.

 

 



 

Girl, charcoal drawing, A1 (2014)