About a year to 18 months ago the series Iconic Buildings of Budgewoi was started. I have written about this further back in the blog although it is too far to be sending readers back to find it. Things are quite disrupted now and no work is getting done. Ironically one of the most recent works has been the Budgewoi Fire Station as seen here. There are a few others. It has been difficult to get a significant number drawn but there is a body of work I am happy to look back on and on some level it justifies my existence and all of the battle against the limitations of disability. They are worked onto Quill Brand acid-free paper which is obtained through the Budgewoi News agency. The news-agency has a good stock of paper things and have ordered what I needed if they didn’t have it in stock. The pens can be either Rotring graphic’s pens with archival ink or Micron pens with archival ink. Some of the nature drawings are using Artline Drawing Systems. My own experience suggests the pigment ink in them is close or as good as archival.

The natural works include shells and discarded insect husks. It has been mentioned that a few dollars was put aside and finally one of the smaller nature drawings was fully framed. It was a wonderful moment that has been years coming to fruition. There is no indication if this line of work will go anywhere now and went from brilliant to bleak in a few days over the last week. There are a pile of images prepared to go to the final drawing stage though.

The drawings in the Iconic Buildings group can take up to eighteen hours of slow work. My body can handle about four hours if I am prepared to be incapacitated for a few day. I am incapacitated far too much of the time anyway so the drawing process is highly positive and deeply meditative even when a single image is worked over a period of weeks. The middle finger on the drawing hand has grown some strange bony protrusion near the last knuckle and needs to be bandaged to avoid discomfort. Both hands are covered in gloves made of old sports socks to maintain the pristine condition of the paper and the inked marks. The paper is not used if the sheet is not perfect. While I will not throw blocks of paper away even slight marking will mean they find other uses. Perhaps some of the felt tip goth drawings that are in the mix for the Grim City Series.