Chapbook entry

Drawing Birds (John Busby)

p. 12

Correctness can become an obsession, and in some pictures one can imagine the artist ticking off a checklist of detail to be included before a bird can be considered finished. This is a formidable inhibition; one that can make a beginner doubt his or her own observation and suppress original creative ideas.

p. 20

Art is a synthesis; a unity of ideas and the means to express them. In a painting there has to be a pictorial reason for the relationships that are made between shapes and spaces, lights and darks, colours, rhythms of line -- everything that controls the movement of the eye as the painting is read. These forces only come together in a work of art. They do not exist in nature in a relationship under human control. In a picture they are governed by the artist's choice. One cannot draw or paint "what one sees" in front of one without being aware of what is happening on the page or canvas in the process. However fascinating the subject matter, we need an equal fascination with the whole business of making marks with which, in a child-like way, we can identify. To copy nature without resolving our own thoughts and feelings is a barren experience.

p. 25

Drawing taught to rigid rules seldom produces anything with real vision behind it. So much depends on a gut feeling for what matters. There are no rules governing the emphasis an artist may choose to put on something, or on what to leave unsaid. The "tone of voice" of a drawing will be different for every artist, and, as in speech, may convey more than the "words" themselves.

p. 34

Drawing is a way of learning to see. Draw anything and you will know it better than before, even if the drawing is not up to much.

p. 39

Drawing is like the unravelling of a mystery, a search for the true nature of an experience. Such drawing, which is not often seen outside the artist's studio, can be far more exciting to read that a carefully finished picture, where the process of creation is no longer visible.

p. 110

Drawing is the next best thing to flying. Sometimes the drawing crash-lands before it is truly airborne. But sometimes a drawing soars.

p. 134

With so much of our wildlife under threat, the more we can cement emotional links to nature in a deep, appreciative, but unsentimental way, the more it will strengthen the public will for conservation.

Related entry here.