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A SCRAPBOOK OF STUFF I'M READING / LISTENING TO / LOOKING AT.

Mar 01, 2012

What does David Shrigley do all day?

I have a big fancy drawing board and I sit in front of that and draw. I start off working for the sake of working, almost randomly. I just draw and write things down just for the sake of it, and it’s not until several hours later that these things start to make sense. I make a large number of drawings and discard around 75 per cent. If I’m working hard I might do 30 or 40 drawings in a day. They’re all completely different. I only do anything once. That’s the rules. I always work on a standard paper size. The drawings I’ve done for the Hayward Gallery show are quite big, acrylic on paper. I could only do 15 of those in a day. I could make about 50 of the smaller ones if I’m working really hard and really late.

I usually write a list of things to draw – a big, long list. If I want to make 50 works there are 50 things to draw. I write a list sometimes weeks before. I just look through books, the internet and just write something down. The starting point is usually ‘man being mauled by a lion’ or something. Sometimes I won’t draw it literally or it’s a text thing but that’s it started. I can fill 50 sheets of paper and once they’re done I’ll go back and add some images to text or text to image. It’s quite a regimented way to work. Sometimes the lion becomes a dog or a horse. ‘Man being mauled by a horse!’ The simple thing I’ve learned over the years is just to have a starting point and once you have a starting point the work seems to make itself.

Emphasis mine. Filed under: routine, David Shrigley