Day 0003

Tomorrow I fly to New York for a month. It is the start of my modern take on the grand tour of the world's greatest art collections as part of my goal to travel for art. I'm intending on spending most of my time in the Met.

I'm also hoping to drop in on the Goya exhibition at the National Gallery on my way through London.

A couple of years ago I never looked to other artists for inspiration, and wouldn't have voluntarily gone to a museum or gallery. When I worked in London I started making a concerted effort to go to the galleries, and over time came to realise how much I could learn from looking at great work and asking how the artist solved particular problems.

The more I try to uncover the secrets of how artists achieved their effects the more I have become interested in art history, particularly the biographies of individual artists. Part of the motive of reading how a work was made, how an artist lived and how a technique was perfected is to plunder tips for my own benefit, part is for the sheer pleasure of learning something new, but a significant part is to experience the pleasure of recalling that learning when confronted by the painting or the artist again. Showing that learning off, whether out-loud to others or just reflecting it back to myself in my head with the knowing smile of the initiate sometimes exceeds the pleasure of enjoying a work purely on its artistic or aesthetic merits. I think that is one of the principle joys of art for connoisseurs, who can use the piece largely as a means of drawing attention to their own learning and taste, and secondarily enjoy it in and of itself.

I like the idea of approaching a work with ignorance, reacting emotionally to it and then intensifying the love for it through learning everything there is to know about it.

Reflections on today's drawing

This is taken from a copy of Michelangelo's Study of an Inclined Head, which he did in red chalk. I spent about two hours on this, and tried to work lightly at first as conte pencils are hard to erase. I have got the overall proportions better today, though the eye is too big -- a common mistake I make, even though I'm aware of it. I have also over-worked the shading on the cheek and the chin, which makes her look bruised and like a wax model. She's also now androgynous in my version, and she has lost all of the grace and subtlety of the original.

I think the drawings are fine in their own right but look extremely poor when compared side-by-side with the originals. I will try to spend more time on the next copies to get closer to the mood of the originals. I will strive for a vital fluidity.