The following article is an extract from an essay written by me in 2019, entitled ‘What does it mean to draw?’ Drawing on trains is something I have done for a while, partly to pass the time. It’s a fascinating and mindful way to experience a train journey in a different way. And a very good Way To Get Looks.
It amazes me how different they are each time I do one. This practice has developed further since these first attempts and I shall share more in the future. For me, drawing doesn’t have to be “of” something, or it could be “of” something you cannot see with the eye, as is the case here. I often think that drawing is most interesting when it is “about” something.
A short video of the process of drawing this piece on a moving train can be seen at: www.instagram.com/p/BrQvBfQDKtX/
“I am on a train, travelling to London, moving at speed through the Oxfordshire countryside. But today I am neither watching the world fly past the window nor admiring the winter sunshine on the hills. I am drawing something: something unseen.
(fig. 1) A Train Journey to London. 11 December 2018. Drawing and photograph by Mark Clay.
Slowly, I move my pen horizontally across the page, attempting to draw lines as straight and steady as possible. With only the nib of my pen touching the paper, this is not easy; a sort of physical challenge, even. The train, swaying over points and round corners, transfers energy through my body, altering my would-be-straight lines. They become jagged, with trembles, loops and kinks recording a memory of each motion, transferred from rail to paper, via carriage, body, arm, hand, and pen.
This drawing is made from, and by, all those things, just as a piece of piano music is not performed solely by a pianist’s fingers but by their whole body in conjunction with both conscious and unconscious mind. It is a record of a journey. It is itself a journey. Paul Klee took his line for a walk, but I am taking mine on a train ride.
At my destination the final, lurching halt of the train registers as a downward-upward spasm. I am thinking about the scientific rigour of a seismologist gathering data, rather than the experimental drawing of an artist gathering lines, so I conclude by drawing a few comparative lines after the train has come to a halt. My lines become much straighter, acting as a “control”, drawn without interference from the train’s motion.“
A Train Journey to London. 11 December 2018. Drawing and photograph by Mark Clay.