Drawing on muscle memory

I’ve always used the words ‘muscle memory’ to quickly answer the question of ‘How did you do that?’
Perhaps a bit ambiguous, but it’s an answer that makes sense for me. I started using drawing/painting seriously in my practice during the second year of my degree. I had been itching to express ideas extended beyond what my camera could do, however still maintaining a feeling of timelessness.
Going from photography, where light and real subjects are what you’re dealing with, to empty space and physical materials is now, a very interchangeable and freeing fluctuation for me… It wasn’t always so easy from the start!

From the get go I inadvertently created my own identity crisis: am I a painter? am I a photographer? I won’t bore you with that part..but as for starting out painting for the first time, I realised that my hand was always wanting to come back to the same lines, creating simple, recognisable forms like cigarettes and phalic like shapes. After spending some time feeling very perplexed, I started using the words muscle memory to unknot myself, and quickly lost the fear with ‘what is the imagery saying about me?’

Its funny, having been used to using my nude body for photographs for some time, it seemed more exposing to be generating imagery solely from my imagination and people seeing that. So having a few words and hazy patterns hovering over me as I painted, was quite useful.

Currently, I’m working on 6 large pastel drawings, and I decided to do some videos of the process. (Apologies for the shoddy quality etc, and horrendous yellow…)

What was going on inside my head to start with, was at most, a very out of focus image of something containing a person. I had the ‘variables’ the same: same colours, same paper etc..but no real clue as to what the picture was going to be in the end.

All of my ‘mistakes’ throughout the process of drawing, become the base of the next place I’m off to on the paper. And you can see, in some of them that there are several life forms existing under the accumulation of coloured dust. Being able to see moments of a drawing, does at times leave me wondering if I should had stopped an hour or two ago..but I guess it adds fuel for the next one!

The closest comparison of ‘muscle memory’ that I have managed to come up with so far is the moment you:

a) first came up with your signature.

b) the fluidity that your hand now has creating the same abstract line with ease, each time you sign something.

I see my drawing sometimes as an ongoing, highly personalised and cryptic signature.So, if you’ve ever been daunted by the blank canvas, perhaps take a moment to notice the lines that are formed naturally from your hand…(or foot or mouth!)