My approach

It seems to me that many drawers and painters are more focused on the depicted object. They want to reveal its meaning anyhow. Even if it is an abstract composition it still depicts objects, albeit abstract, such as a square, or a brushstroke. The artist may say that this brushstroke depicts a feeling, shame for example. In this case the picture depicts an object called Shame and for the sake of it the whole work was conceived. This was the goal. And so with so many fine arts.
         

For me, the main thing in my work is not the object, although it is depicted in sufficient detail. My task is to use the object to study the drawing. And I understand drawing as a method of projecting an object onto a plane. I would even say that the very phenomenon or the essence of this projection is what I'm interested in. Therefore, I immediately abandoned impulsive techniques, as they would create unnecessary noise in my work. Of course, one might immediately think that a computer is more suitable for such purposes, but ... Here we run into a question to which I do not yet know the answer. I have computer skills and I am interested in it, but for very subjective reasons I use this dusty forgotten technique and I really like it. And I would like to tell you more about it.


Ink wash technique
        
This is a classic drawing technique that appeared in China a long time ago. Its essence lies in the fact that the artist applies thin invisible layers of ink on the paper where necessary, one by one. Layering on top of each other, invisible layers turn into an airy picture. The main thing is that each next layer should be applied to the completely dried previous one, if the previous layer does not dry out, the picture will be uneven and not nice.        When this technique came to Europe, it was mainly used to illustrate scientific books where a high level of detail needed, also archeology and architectural drawings. In architectural visualizations, this technique has become the most widespread and famous. It was used throughout the 18th, whole 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. Moreover, both adult architects for the presentation of buildings, and students of architecture. There has even appeared a separate "profession" of Paper Architect - one who failed to build anything, but I suspect that not all of them really wanted to build, since drawing is much more interesting thing. One of these architects, who surpassed all others before and after him was Jean-Jacques Lequeu. By the way, he is just the same age as Mozart, but I say this for no other reason than to indicate the time in which he lived.
                                                                           

Sketch
           
I start off by just running my pencil on paper surface, hoping to come up with something and draw a sketch. For me, a sketch is the most valuable thing. I would dwell on it if there was no need to demonstrate my idea to others.           Most often I start with a square, divide it into two or into three parts, then into nine, then I draw a circle somewhere, then another one, or half a circle, or a quarter. In the end, the circle may not be present in the work, but the composition will obey it, for example. Anyway, all my works are basically strictly geometric, absolutely each drawing, this is the only way I work.           So, after a while, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, a sketch appears.
                                                                           

Drawing
         
When the sketch is ready, I decide what size it will be, most often I choose a 1x1 m square - my most common format. And pull the watercolor paper onto a wooden panel. To do this, the entire paper is soaked in cold water in order to be saturated with moisture and increase in size, then sticked to the ends of the panel with glue while it is wet, and then it dries and shrinks. This is the easiest way to work on it, since it is always perfectly flat, even when it gets wet again. I've seen some watercolor painters work without pulling the paper over the panel and the paper curls under the influence of water and never straightens again. This does not happen with stretched paper. It is always flat.           When the paper is dry I start drawing. Everything is common here: a sharpened pencil, a ruler, a drawing tool (I use rapidograph). In the process of drawing I collect information about the object that I am drawing. As I said in the previous section, the object is not the main thing, but a high level of detail is important to me, so I study the object very carefully, and the complicated angles of view that I use require a thorough study of the object.

                                                                                             
Shadows 
       
The stage of putting shades is quite interesting. Sometimes it creates a complicated web of thin pencil lines.In general, shadows are a key element in my work. After all, they often form the composition no less than the outlines of the objects themselves, and sometimes to a greater extent. Besides, returning to the idea of ​​drawing as a projection: if objects depicted on paper are projected onto a plane, then a shadow is a projection of complex objects onto another complex objects, and all this is then projected onto the plane of the sheet. All this, of course, is very difficult and interesting and is the main source of inspiration for me and reasoning about it is what form my compositions. Of course, I do not hope that all people are savvy enough in descriptive geometry to count this. But, to be honest, I don’t need it. Let it be among those things that remain somewhere in the depths of the work.

                                                                                                 
Wash
       
When the drawing is ready, I rinse the paper under running water to wash off excess grease (only the paper stretched over the panel can be washed under running water).        While the paper is drying I make several solutions of different shades and, if necessary, colors. Usually these are several glass jars, about 5, in which ink of a very weak concentration is diluted with water. From almost imperceptible tone to medium.         The ink washing is the most difficult stage from a technical point of view and time consuming. This is a whole school that needs to be studied starting from the very basics of drawing and painting. I briefly described this stage above, in the introduction to the "Technique" section. Also while doing one of my works, I shot the time-lapse you see in background...