Twenty four pages as yet unbound, 3 inches by 4 inches, 6 pages per line, 4 lines merged together. I intend them to make a book that will fit in my wooden crate. I have bound them several times, no effort has turned out exactly how I had hoped for. They are a series of influences from my past, indelible in my make up and they are as fresh as the day they happened, sight, smell and sounds accompany them. A map of sorts.

These road photos are not interesting enough by themselves so I shall try posting them in blocks, starting after this one, which actually was a bad photo to begin with. I shall continue with the exercise series of more than 500 photos as I originally intended. Vivien Blackburn writes about a timely topic for me, what are the key elements of drawing and painting better, see her blog here January 6th 2012  Hopefully I will find what I am looking for.

This is looking strangely like something it's not. What I am enjoying with these snapshot sketches  is starting each day with a new one even if yesterday's is unfinished.

Drawn with a black Cretacolor pencil (which I found was hard to get different shades with). I wish to be accurate and not losing that but getting some sort of movement and life. Should I leave out or put in objects because the photo was a snap? I am evaluating this out loud, why I am doing this - it is to help me interpret what I see. Maybe simplify too and that gives me the go ahead to omit.

No 2: Sketching from a photo taken in the car whilst traveling at 100K down to Hawkes bay.

I want to try and change how I draw things, starting with a series of sketches from my road photos taken on the way to Hawkes Bay. This is number one and it's amazing how it's as bad as the previous post. I shall continue - maybe it will take many sketches to work out where I want to go.

This is not what I want to do, so I have a starting point. Perhaps it will be more difficult to change how I do things than I think.