Ready for Sea Possibly 1917 - 1918

Muirhead Bone made this drawing, Ready for Sea, with ink, and its nervous energy just zings. It reminds me of the drawings I did in my twenties! I imagine Bone, standing on the docks, squinting in the salty air, feeling the enormity of the machinery around him. He’s trying to wrangle a chaotic scene into some kind of order, and that’s what I love about drawing – you’re not just recording, you’re *thinking*. Look at the confident hatching, how he evokes the density of the ship versus the open sky. It’s so intuitive! You can sense Bone’s hand moving, deciding, correcting, and then deciding again. I can relate to that feeling. It’s like the drawing is finding its way as he goes. Drawing for Bone became a way of seeing, thinking, and experiencing the world. And he's still speaking to us through it.