Am borrowing the above title for my drawing from The Week. I think it is a more suitable title to my drawing. hehehehe. i had named it “the strand in a weave that made a difference.” it’s long and unpoetic. hahahahah, is there such a word? unpoetic?
so i want to write the story behind the drawing which was printed today in Republica, The Week…I was asked to make sth for the youth special over two weeks back. i’d been thinking about it since I was given the assignment..for some reason, this idea of a weave got into my head right from the start. this complicated society where there are outstanding young folks doing what they came to serve their communities…i am awed by initiatives. i wanted to make a drawing that conveyed that idea.
and somehow, i wanted to draw a weave…in all it’s complexities and I started looking at weaving techniques online. i looked at a couple and well, first i had to make the weave to draw it. some of them were too complicated and well, drawing them would be too but then i couldn’t weave them. didn’t have the tools to properly weave.
after nearly two weeks of thinking, i finally sat down to work on wednesday night i.e. a day before the deadline. i chose a simple style and made a weave from paper but when i drew it out it looked like a normal weave. like the over and under one.
first i did an ink one. i worked on it for hours….like from 6 pm to 1 am with dinner break. woke up at 6:30 ish am and worked on it for a few hours…but i wasn’t happy with it after it finished. i didn’t have time left for the rest of the day since i had other plans, but looking at the paper buckle…the kind of tactility i wanted to portray..hhhmmmm…it wasn’t working and even though i’d emailed it to The Week, i wasn’t sure of it. and when bijay reacted by saying that i could do more, i felt that he was right. i think i was in the ink and pen and brush groove that i wanted to continue in the medium. the previous drawing i did was in ink. it wasn’t working for this one.
here, my first attempt looked like this:
While I was at work, i cancelled my plans for the day which included going to a photography exhibition and to Pulchowk campus to see the annual exhibition organized by 3rd year students. had to postpone the two for today :-( but i was determined to go home and start a new drawing. it bugged me. and so i sat down for the rest of the afternoon until 7 pm..nearing 7 pm i started to panic because i was getting late and well, i was scared that the lights would go out at 7 pm and i wouldn’t be able to scan the drawing and send it on time. under pressssureeeee…mostly self-induced pressure for not having done it earlier :-P
whew, working in pencil and that too with lead pencil is TOUGH! i sometimes ask myself, “why do i torture myself?” you know, all the tiny tiny marks. while i am starting out i have so much energy, by the time it’s half down am tired from leaning over the table and asking myself the question…WHY WHY….but when i’m nearly done, i feel this sense of excitement of having started it all…if it’s turned out well. hahahahahaha and many a times there are disappointments too. but i like to look at them positively. you know that dialogue from Dabangg: there is always a first time, there is always a next time. hahahah.
but seriously, it’s a challenge to find the drawing that you really wanted to make. i write ‘find the drawing’ because so much of making a drawing is discovering yourself and your work, as you make it. it’s like in photography…the shot may have always been there, but you need to find it…ahhhh…am i making sense?
the journey of a drawing comes with its ups and downs. that’s what i wanted to say. and i always have my downs.
with love, from ktm 