So it started there...

I've recently had these two drawings in a local open exhibition. It's the first time I've ever put anything on display in public (or at home for that matter, although I know there a few "private collections" in existence) but I thought it was about time I stopped being such a massive weirdo about it. I'm painfully shy when it comes to my art and I get in such a state when I'm about to show a drawing to someone, especially if they've asked for it. Which is why I never mentioned that I was showing anything until now...the exhibition ended an hour ago...sorry! One day I might do something normal. 

Like empty shells...

It often only occurs to me after a drawing is finished where the idea might have come from. I've probably said it before many times but it's subconscious, I find it very difficult to come up with something when I think "I'd like to include x/y/z in a drawing," but let my mind roam around and things appear. This, I now see, has some science fiction elements (no shit, it's a shell the size of a tower block!); Ray Bradbury's earpiece shells from Farenheit 451, Arthur C Clarke's imposing monoliths...none of this is intentional but it creeps in and curls up by my feet and I hear it breathing softly in the background, or is that just the snoring pug? 

I promised myself I would finish this before the year was out and for once I set a goal and stuck to it, long may that continue. It was a polishing up of an old idea and I can lay it to rest now, though I don't think it'll truly be the end; I like the uncanny feeling of unnatural scale. I'm looking forward to the stillness of January and the chance to rifle through my notes and scribbles for the next old/new thing. 

Happy New Year. 

Either it is, or it isn't...

Inspired by one of the most unusual things I've ever been presented with as a gift. In real life, both these beauties were sadly deceased, so this is the backstory. I'm not going to provide too much narrative; grief speaks for itself. A friend who saw this drawing today described moths as tiny humans with cloaks on creeping about at night. So if creepy, night-dwelling, dead stuff is your bag, this ones on me. Happy Halloween. 

What's deceased and what's alive...

Everything you see here has come straight from my mind. The inaccuracies, the bad perspective, the anguish...yes, I claim them all! I think we've all felt like this; the thing we want more than anything, forever outside of our reach. I hope I've captured something of that feeling and also the physical sense of animate vs inanimate; here but not really; vital parts missing...I park my dark in these crosshatched shadows and laugh a lot in real life as a result. It keeps me on the straight and narrow (most of the time). Finding somewhere to keep your melancholy doesn't mean you have to hide it or hide from it. Throw it out there...it works. 

Hope you're happy too...

One from the archives...Since I'm drawing either very slowly or not at all at the moment I thought I'd share this little ballpoint drawing from a few years back. It was for a (now disbanded) local band that my brother drummed for called J.A.R.S (hence the jar) to promote an EP they made called (you guessed it) My Friend Hope. They were quite specific about what they wanted but luckily at the time I had a bit of a thing for drawing glass jars and bottles. I toyed with the idea of putting something in the jar, I can't remember now what sort of things passed through my thought clouds but in the end it seemed that the title suggested emptiness waiting to be filled so it was left as it was. The typography is a bit dodgy and the perspective isn't right but the lads were quite happy with it...it's all subjective isn't it? 

They're only echoes...

It feels like years since I started this (it's actually just a couple of weeks) and back then I had a reason for it, something definite had inspired the idea, it meant something. But it coincided with a bout of repetitive strain (I think, but it's in both hands so I'm not so sure) and then trapping my thumb in a collapsing washing maiden, which stopped all fine detail for a bit and made me forget the point.
So let me view it retrospectively and try and impart some meaning to the art...This is my hand, the one I draw with, so I suppose it's a kind of self portrait. I did post an earlier version on Instagram (@hollyholtart) with a description along those lines but I've refined it slightly since then and added some pencil (of all things), which I actually quite enjoyed as the delicacy of the drawing required something less...dense. This is one of those drawings that would have gone on forever so I just had to decide to stop. I'm even going to be so bold as to say I quite like this drawing. It's a description of the part of me that's close to nature, the part that likes to pick things up and explore them, the part that has to translate thoughts into pictures. The part that hides in a shell. Right, I've said too much, I'm outta here!

Hidden treasure...

Sometimes I just have to prove to myself that I still can. It felt good to do something observational, to think about negative space and form and light and shadow and really look at a thing rather than dreaming it up. To actually draw a thing that's there in front of me. So the victim of choice was these tiny bones and the weapon, biro. I've had the bones for ages, I found them and keep them in this little box like some kind of psycho killer. I'm not. I just love their bleached beauty and their reminder that everything is finite. We'll all be bones in a box one day I suppose. I wonder what people reading this think I'm like in real life...