pencil drawing by Ray Patrick
Seven graphite head studies spread across three overlapping sheets on a table, with two pencils laid beside them — the same model worked repeatedly in different light.
The sheets overlap at angles and the heads run across them in no fixed order. Each study is cropped at the shoulder and set in its own rectangle of worked tone, so the group reads as a sequence of attempts rather than a composition.
Graphite on white throughout, from near-black grounds to bare paper in the lights. Two of the studies are reversed — a pale head on a dark ground — and those are the strongest on the table.
Blocked in with the side of the lead and worked up by cutting the lights back out of the tone rather than reserving them, so each head emerges from its ground instead of sitting on it.
Graphite on paper, seven studies on three sheets. A studio photograph of a group of drawings rather than a single picture.
No signature legible at this scale.