Last night I was watching a programme about the European renaissance. You know, one of those ones where you get a glimpse of paintings for a few seconds, before they are on to the next face or body. Impossible to draw a face from there.

One revelation was that the Greek and Roman statues would have had painted patterns and faces coloured when they were first carved. As the centuries between then and the renaissance passed, the colours would have faded or washed away. The response of sculptors like Michaelangelo was to carve their figures out of bright white carrera marble. Because what they were seeing coming out of the ground was sculptures that had lost their paint.

That is why I drew patterns and shade on this drawing, it’s an imagined figure. If I had some good colouring pencils I might colour it in… I will look.

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