Pencil Troop
Pencil Troop
What happens when one pencil becomes many?
Embedded Files
Pencil Troop is a drawing method I developed through experimentation with pencils and mark-making.
Instead of using a single pencil, I bind several pencils together and use them simultaneously. As they move across the paper, each pencil creates its own mark, producing multiple lines, overlaps and directional changes within a single movement.
From one line to many
From one line to many
A conventional pencil produces a single point of contact with the paper.
Pencil Troop creates several points of contact at once.
Small differences in pressure, direction and movement cause the pencils to behave differently from one another. The resulting marks can be controlled, but they also contain an element of unpredictability.
The technique is not the artwork
The technique is not the artwork
Pencil Troop is a means of making the work, not the subject of the work itself.
I am interested in what happens when this process is applied to faces, figures and other subjects — where recognisable forms meet layers of energetic and sometimes unpredictable marks.
The tension between control and chance has become an important part of my practice.
Why I developed it
Why I developed it
I have always been interested in experimentation.
I become restless when a technique becomes predictable, so I tend to challenge the way I am working rather than simply repeat it.
Pencil Troop developed from that process of questioning what a drawing tool could do differently.
Google Sites
Report abuse