Flurries 5
Pencils
Lithographic pencils are unusual in that they must satisfy the divergent needs of the artist and those of the stone: the lampblack in the pencils is inert but it allows the artist to see the design, the tallow is there for the stone to record the image in grease, but it is a hassle for the artist.
When the studio gets hot in the summer, litho pencils soften with the heat. To draw the most delicate passages, the finest pencils must be refrigerated to harden the wax inside.
The series of Fulgurite is the result of more than three years of exploring the shape of the pencil in the illustion of capturing the elusive extremes of the artist's endeavour.
As I use up a pencil, it feels as if all its energy and all the drawings made with it, end up compacted and fused into that small stub. I cannot throw away a pencil stub. They are relics.
