Drawing: Artist - David Hockney

David Hockney was born in 1937 and is an English painter, draughtsman and printmaker. Hockney has lived in Bridlington, Yorkshire and London but has also lived in California on and off for  over 30 years. Hockney is an important contributor to the pop art movement in the 1960s and has also been considered one of the most influential British artists in the 20th century. 

In the 1970's Hockney travelled a great deal and chose to work with line drawings. 

‘I never talk when I am drawing a person, especially if I’m making line drawings. I prefer there to be no noise at all so I can concentrate more. You can’t make a line too slowly, you have to go at a certain speed; so the concentration needed is quite strong. It’s very tiring as well. If you make two or three line drawings, it's very tiring in the head, because you have to do it all at one go, something you’ve no need to do with pencil drawings…Its exciting doing it, and I think it's harder than anything else; so when they succeed, they’re much better drawings, often.’ 

(Nikos Stangos, David Hockney by David Hockney, My Early Years, Thames and Hudson, London, 1976, p.158)

David Hockney was an acquaintance of Pablo Picasso who worked in the Cubist era and his work reflects the line drawings that he made. 

Portrait of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) 1920 (graphite on paper)  

The simplistic line drawings show the importance of line and how much of a subject you can draw using a little detail as possible. Using this method also benefits the artist as it means that you can sketch quickly in observational pieces and times where you need to create a larger number of drawings at a faster pace.

For my own practice, I intend to use the idea that using a single line makes observational sketches and drawing in public places faster and easier to create. 

In relation to my original intentions, i think that creating a collection of observational sketches will show people the things that we don't necessarily pay attention to, the small details we overlook and the people that we wouldn't normally associate with and wouldn't pay attention to. 

ref (http://www.waterman.co.uk/artists/225-David-Hockney/works/1857/)