one of the most upsetting things is losing a sketchbook. i know that sounds terribly self-absorbed, but it really is upsetting.

for about two or three years, from 2000 onwards, i kept a sketchbook full of portraiture. it was very music-based and comprised mainly of intensely detail-heavy pencil drawings of my favourite bands onstage, usually from photographs (have you tried standing in front of a stage with a sketchpad? i have, and it's bloody hard, and usually fruitless). there were also a few portraits of people i cared a lot about (boyfriends or friends etc). some of those drawings are online, but the more recent, and better ones, aren't, sadly.

i'd almost completely forgotten about that sketchbook until this evening. on juno doran's site, she was talking about "a painting as redemption of an image [or] a memory", and it started me i thinking about a drawing i did of someone who made perhaps the strongest and most instant impression on me that anyone ever has. in the space of a week he blew my mind. i draw for all sorts of reasons, but this time it was deeply cathartic. it was an A4 pencil drawing that i started in january 2003 and took me three months to finish. by the time i finished it, i'd actually gotten over him. (i saw him again a couple of weeks ago, and much as i thought/worried that old feelings might surface, it seems that drawing really did its job.)

i'd love to upload the drawing onto my art site, as it's one of the pieces i'm more proud of than anything; it's just a drawing but it's more personal than anything i've ever done, i wanted it to be a perfect photographic representation, and after three months of frustration, sweat and tears, it finally did.

i lost that sketchbook over a year ago though. i brought it along to my foundation interview in summer 2003, and it disappeared shortly after that, i've not seen it since. it was a visual journal for me of sorts, so it rather feels like i've lost a record of three years. i have three or four sketchbooks on the go now, and none of them mean as much to me as that one did.

xxx
  ¶ 6:40 PM