Jake Lamerton is a London-based figurative painter. In this instalment of our Inside the Sketchbook series, he shares how he is navigating his relationship to drawing and how working with dry media, such as graphite and charcoal, informs his approach to painting.
Inside the Sketchbook of Jake Lamerton
Drawing has become a vital part of my practice as I confront the uncertainty that underpins my work. The sketchbook, as a site of investigation, is important to me, both in the material flexibility it encourages and the opportunity to preserve provisional ideas that may later evolve into finished works.
Through this, drawing has become an arena for me to find the tension within an image. As I push to become more varied in the gestures this may take, the sketchbook binds them together as a continuous body.
I typically keep many sketchbooks at once: A6 or A5 for travel, plus A4 and A3 for the studio. I also work on loose A2 cartridge paper affixed to a drawing board. The work in these books and sheets can very quickly find a place on my studio wall, which then becomes the extended sketchbook. The drive behind this shift away from the book is to give myself the space to oversee the developing landscape of ideas, preventing a hyperfixation on one isolated statement and, hopefully, saving the images from overwork. This approach is essential to my broader practice, which aims to unify disparate stylistic attitudes into a shared history through their connections to the county of Kent, around which all the work originates.
The breadth of my materials has expanded exponentially, from graphite pencils outward. Each material has a different role depending on which element of drawing is deployed; line, mass, shape. Each of which has infinite paths of enquiry to be followed for any given image.
Recently, I’ve returned to working from photography as a way to explore the cultural landscape and iconography that drive my work, while also presenting aesthetic problems for me to solve. The photograph allows me to break down an image, to pull at the thread of inherent tension within. This might involve obscuring certain elements or allowing others to become incongruous and awkward.
I also work from imagination and memory, which intersects with the more direct response to a source image. In both cases, the work is very much driven by the same impulse of confronting the landscape in which I grew up. The drawings that result from this discipline often lead to painting, though the tension found in the drawing rarely carries over into the painted work. The translation from drawing to painting typically creates a new pictorial challenge, one driven by the material itself. For me, drawing is the brain and painting is the hand. Drawing leads the material, while painting is led by it.
It has been a long journey for me to return to drawing after years of grappling with its primacy. Now it holds such a vital role in my practice, surpassing even painterly technique. As I explore the uncertainty of my relationship to the subject matter, the sketchbook becomes a space where my intentions can come into focus.
My relationship with drawing has long been a source of unease, often feeling too exposed or awkward. However, now this awkwardness actively influences the work, rather than needing to be masked.
This shift towards acceptance has come from recognising the broader intentions of my practice. Most of my works present as isolated moments that, for me, are broad symbolic gestures with wider cultural or personal implications than they might initially appear to convey. Understanding this gives me permission to fully commit to the singular page; to fix what is broken, or to allow it to remain broken. This process segues directly into the uncertainty of a painterly ground. Often, this intentionally acts in disharmony with the planned result, which I then reconcile by overpainting.
The sketchbooks I use are generally hardback and ring-bound. I can treat the surface as a tablet and fully commit to the potential of each page. This approach holds me accountable in a way that is hard to maintain when I feel like the work is solely preparatory. It gives space for the throwaway gesture to carry as much weight as the carefully rendered study, with the interplay between the two forming an important part of my practice overall.
I generally use smooth cartridge paper, as I’ve recently been drawn to a graphic flatness and line quality that comes most easily from a surface with little tooth. This paper is also chosen for its alterability, allowing me to wipe out the image with a cloth and retain as many or few pentimenti as needed. With this in mind, I can return to old drawings and reassess my intentions.
Part of the drive in my recent drawings has been to use the full capacity of my tools; by carefully sharpening the drawing tool I can utilise a multitude of different marks, which provide opportunities for the image to unravel in multiple ways. The most seductive tool, for me, is Conté à Paris Sketching Crayons in Sanguine, which enforces a commitment to the marks made, as any amendments seem to gain unintended prominence.
The material counterpoint to this perceived indelibility is willow charcoal sticks. Sanded into a wedge, they can quickly establish masses of light and dark, reducing an image to just 2-4 values.
This reliance on the silhouette forces the question of whether the tension can be held in the edges of these forms. It also challenges what should be considered a positive or negative form within the image. For charcoal works in particular, their life after my involvement is vital as they are so vulnerable to smudging. In some cases, this vulnerability prompts a necessary intervention against over-preciousness or a provocation for me to re-intervene. However, the majority must be removed from the sketchbook and fixed to preserve the subtle gestures that my intrigue relies upon.
My advice to anyone would be that drawing provides an opportunity for understanding; of the subject and of one’s intent. Amendments, erasures, reworking, and restarting are all essential resources that can be deployed with equal conviction in support of this.
A rule I try to uphold: Make it right or try again. This is less about instantaneous resolution, and more a commitment to follow where the drawing leads.
About Jake Lamerton
Born in Canterbury, Jake uses image-making to process the landscape of Kent through the overlapping lenses of generational history, autobiography and sociopolitics. He works with the tension that underpins Kent as the place he grew up, the homeland of his ancestors and as the gateway to England.
Jake earned a BFA from the Slade School of Art and is currently studying at Turps Art School. He lives and works in London and has exhibited nationally, including at the Royal Academy of Art, London.
Materials Used
Faber-Castell Pitt Compressed Charcoal Sticks
Winsor & Newton Professional Fixative
Conté à Paris Pierre Noire Pencils HB, 3B
Conté à Paris Sketching Crayon Sanguine
Conté à Paris Sketching Crayon Sanguine Medicis
Faber-Castell 9000 Graphite Pencils 3B
Cretacolor Monolith Pencils 4B
Fabriano Hardback Sketchbook A4
Daler-Rowney Ebony Hardbound Sketchbook A6
Faber-Castell Kneadable Art Eraser
General Pencil Company Charcoal Pencil HB, 4B
Rohrer & Klingner Traditional Ink 100 ml Bister Bistre
Further Reading
Review of Viarco ArtGraf No1 Drawing Graphite Putty
Two Artists Test Jackson’s Drawing Materials
Developing a Daily Drawing Practice with the Royal Drawing School
Combining Materials to Reinvigorate Your Drawing Practice
Shop Sketchbooks on jacksonsart.com
