During the course of an afternoon at the Centre for Drawing; artist Theresa Whitfield came to visit and showcase her fine drawings of Victorian lace.
Each drawing was made using a Rotring technical drawing pen. When discovering that Victorian lace was made by hand, in large groups of women of all ages, I quickly linked the mechanism of the technical pen to that of replicating the delicate threads of cotton as they were pinned in place to the pin roll cushion to make the pattern of the lace.
It was clear to me that this drawing process Theresa had developing was very closely linked to how drawing is very much a focused and often hypnotic activity to engage in.
I really appreciated the magnificent level of detail Theresa produced with her work. The sheer amount of time invested in each drawing in some way seemed to bring Theresa closer to the process of making lace by using drawing.
Theresa mentioned that in fact the drawing although very detailed and looks much like the original piece of lace she had chosen to draw – that in fact she used a simple and continuous ‘looping’ action to weave the line together across the Fabriano paper.