Queen Elizabeth Hall c1995

This is the first drawing I made in the darkness of a concert auditorium. It was at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank. My dad is playing double bass (on the left) and I'd gone along to meet him. They were accompanying the opera showcase season, where new singers made their first public performances. They played small pieces from different operas. I liked that fact that you could draw unobserved in the darkness, and that you couldn't really see what the drawing was like, so it took away a lot of that self-conscious editing that happens to a drawing. It's a bit like drawing without looking at the paper, that trusty method which allows you to reconnect with looking properly, instead of drawing what you think should be there. It's not a great drawing but it started a habit. I like drawing musicians playing. They move about, but not too much, and they make interesting shapes. Musical instruments are such interesting things too, and there is a great difficulty in drawing them to look like they are being held and really played.