Working in my studio

Me drawing in my studio
Drawing in my studio.
I always work from life. I feel very uncomfortable working from memory, photographs or imagination. I’m not always completely conscious of what I’m creating; I try to stay loyal to what I see without glamorising or romanticising.

Drawing a rucksack Drawing a rucksack Drawing in my studio
Drawing a rucksack in my studio, using a black oil pastel on paper.

I work with oil pastels and oil bars, which are effectively pieces of oil paint and take a long time to dry. I’ve tried many drawing materials and oild pastel is best at producing a dark solid line. Graphite seems to produce only a weak grey line and marker pens don’t have the depth of oil pastel which raises up off of the page. I try to increase this effect by mounting the drawings on card and then cutting them out.

Exhibition: Animate Objects #2

Animate objects #2 Cut-out drawings of objects by Paul Doeman.
13th – 22nd August Wednesday – Sunday 12-6pm

You’re an animate object, a sum of many parts. Just like a rucksack, chair or ladder you can be taken apart. What is it to be an object? Is what something is just the product of its many functions?
Animate objects was the name of an exhibition I put on in 1998; this show is named  “Animate objects #2” with a view to continuing some of those ideas.

Life-size drawings in oil pastel on paper and cut-out, dance and show-off the personalities of some of the objects that surround us.

The exhibition is at 242 gallery, 242 Cambridge Heath Road, London, E2 9DA.

Closest Tube: Bethnal Green.  National railway: Cambridge Heath station. View Larger Map

Animate Objects #2 Exhibition
Animate Objects #2 Exhibition

Collapsible chair
Drawings of a collapsible chair - drawn with oil pastel on paper, cut-out and mounted on cardboard.

Speedball dissection drawing

Discection of a speedball: Drawings. 10 drawings of a boxing speedball in black oil paste, cut out and put on cardboard.
These speedball drawings continue the boxing theme.  The speedball was bought on eBay and drawn in various stages of decomposition.
This speedball was designed to be fastened to the ceiling and floor via two rubber lines and small leather straps.