All the Food in China

 

I strongly believe the physical act of drawing can enable clearer memory recall. When I view the drawings I have made at a later I can more clearly recall the event and feel a connection to the time the drawing was made. Having recently been in China where I ate the most delicious foods, I wanted to ensure that I was able to hold on to the sensory memories of the food I ate. By creating a drawn record of all that I ate and drank I tried to capture the essence of every culinary highlight. 

Sesame broth with three types of tofu, taro root noodles, mushrooms and chilli

A clear broth with three types of mushroom

Truffle dumplings 

Brown cloud mushrooms in sesame sauce

Teenage peanut shoots

Tangy yellow fermented cabbage broth

Shaved lions mane mushrooms 

Tiny pink vegan sushi rolls

Lockdown Ice Cream Part 1

Working from home over the course of the pandemic I began to feel an urgent need to leave my house at least once a day to take a walk, see the sky and get a bit of exercise. I walked around my local area and over time the expeditions became longer and further reaching, at times up to 9km. I began to notice that whatever the weather, at some point in every walk there would be an ice cream van parked up and waiting for business. 

These drawings from August 2020 were drawn on location on Clapham and Wandsworth Commons. The first lockdown had ended but people were anxious about going into public spaces so even though the weather was sunny there were very few people around. Hence the man in the top image feeling free to sun himself wearing only shorts and no top. I am fascinated by the patience of the ice cream sellers but I never buy one as I really don't like ice cream

 

sketchbooks

Personal recollection is a resource to draw from in creating art.
"Animation itself is the hard copy of psychological memory."
This is a quote from Paul Wells in Drawing for Animation.
I have thought about this as I browse through old sketchbooks, they form a visual record of my own personal history. Each sketch represents and records a specific moment that I have personally captured in a concentrated form. As a result of the intensity of concentration necessary to attempt to capture such records these drawings can be said to be the essences of memory.