On the Subject of Drawing

I’ve been fascinated with long drawings for years. I like to buy the cheap rolls of paper from IKEA (MÅLA) and try to make one drawing that is 98′ long. There’s a connection between scroll drawing and animation, too. The linear flow of a narrative.

I’ve been wanting to work bigger, and with something more durable than kids’ drawing paper. I’ve used Tyvek over the years, and as I still have part of a roll from an old construction project, I decided to build an easel to hold and help me manage larger drawings.

This was my first attempt, using an old table top and an IKEA table/leg set I have in the basement. I decided that I didn’t need that much horizontal surface space, and I also needed something to hold rolls of paper.

Version two, shown below with a drawing in progress, works much better. With the scroll loaded into a 1/4″ piece of PVC pipe, I can work either right-to-left, or left-to-right, depending on which side of the table the scroll sits.

And here is the above drawing, finished:

I start with some small, thumbnail sketches to figure out what I want to do:

And then I transfer that idea onto the scroll, which I cut out, collage with other materials, etc.