Patience is a virtue.....

Blue Print, each 838 x 1143 mm drawn with a different brand of blue ballpoint pen

Currently I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my Wacom Inkling – (once it does arrive I’ll do a review here). In the meantime I’m considering why I’m so interested in the whole idea? I am not particularly interested in making sketches or preliminary drawings to develop further on the computer which is obviously the main reason it was developed (although I’m sure it will be useful in this capacity). I’m more interested in seeing how it can inform my current interest in the traditional/ digital, source/ outcome and unique/ multiple - producing a drawing which can then be repeated on a variety of surfaces. Repetition is an important element in my work. Back in 2002 - 2004 I was hand cutting stencils and then drawing through them with a variety of media – each one was an original but also part of a series. The image was repeated but the outcome was different in each case. I also did a lot of drawing using carbon paper – triptychs which consisted of the original, the carbon paper ‘negative’ and the carbon copy – again repetition but with variation. This is one thing which has resurfaced with my current work – the potential for using an original digital drawing as a direct source for a variety of outcomes (and ‘direct’ is probably the important thing for me at this stage). What I think interests me about the inkling is that I will have an original paper drawing, a digital file which has been created without any further interventions (e.g. scanning) and as I am also considering using carbon paper - a further two images.  The fact that the inkling can produce the digital file as both raster and vector is also intriguing. I am looking forward to seeing how the pressure sensitive drawing translates into a vector file – particularly as the inkling will only be able to cope with paper up to A4 and a vector file will potentially allow outcomes of a much larger scale.  Lots of things to think about and very frustrating that I still have to wait 2 – 3 weeks for it to arrive.......