Gabrielle Nowicki 2016 - Details of a drawing in progress part 4.Graphite on paperDrawing the plante

Gabrielle Nowicki 2016 - Details of a drawing in progress part 4.

Graphite on paper

Drawing the planter marks 

I taped together some 2mm pencil leads. They are 4B so I don’t have to press hard to make the lines, and they have a soft quality to them as the graphite catches on the tooth of the paper’s surface. The effect reminds me of warm, friable soil that’s ready to be planted.

Drawing the lines takes planning, If you have ever planted a field, this part would be familiar to you. You must plan your headlands, turnarounds and the direction of the rows. You must also plant as straight as you can, and space each pass so the row spacings are as equal as possible. 

The lines I’m drawing are records of the movement of my hand pulling the pencil leads. You can look at them and get a sense of the action involved in drawing them.  I think they look a bit like zen garden raking patterns.