David Reed's drawings

David Reed has a very particular relationship with drawing. The drawings he produces are central to his creative process, but they not only help with the development of ideas, they actually document the creative process itself and as well as that they comment on it.  His drawings effectively create thinking spaces for his paintings.

 

Painting #543

Working Drawing for Painting #543, 2004–2006

Working Drawing for Painting #543 Page 2

Working Drawing for Painting #550, 2005-2006

David Reed: Painting #550

Alongside precisely dated questions on painting technique and artistic decisions, there are comments on visits to studios, private notes and colour tests. When viewing his working drawings it is as if we were witnessing a transparent painter's mind. 

The drawings he produces begin as a painting idea begins. They then accompany the idea as it gestates, document it and comment on it ; creating a thinking space in which painting is discussed as to its potentiality and its place within the long history of painting itself.

David Reed, «Working Drawing for Painting #649», 2015

David Reed: Working Drawing for Painting #661, 2016: Mixed media on graph paper.

Painting 661: Vice and Reflection

For those of you who paint, rather than draw and perhaps dismiss drawing as something that is not necessary, it may well be worth your while looking at David Reed's approach. I realise it is not for everyone, but in some ways it is not unlike Edward Hopper's use of drawings to document his work. 

Edward Hopper

Both artists reflect on their process, Hopper once it is finished and Reed as it begins, but drawing for both is a form of documentary evidence, especially of things that are usually lost in the activity of an image's making, giving each artist an opportunity to write about the process of image making as well as to make drawings that reflect on painting.

David Reed: Colour study 6

Edward Hopper: Study for morning sun

I tend to think of Reed's drawings as large sketchbook pages, but there is a difference between the sketchbook page and the sheet of a preparatory drawing. One is scale of course, but perhaps more important is the fact that a drawing on a sheet of paper can be pinned or blue-tacked to the studio wall. Because I am often working in ceramics or printmaking, I find sketchbooks a better option, because I don't have a permanently set up studio to work in, having to go to specialist workshops to get work finalised. Neither way is right, but at some point as an artist you will probably have to consider how your thinking process operates in relation to the final outcome.

Frank Auerbach's studio

See also:

The preparatory sketch

Sketchbooks

Using sketchbooks to think with

Garry Barker: Working observational sketchbook 

Garry Barker: Ideas development sketchbook

Garry Barker: Work development sketchbook