A waste of time

I drew this sometime around 2020, though I didn’t record the exact date. It’s based on a photograph of Buster Keaton that I came across by chance. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, but the image caught my attention. His face had a kind of suspended stillness that seemed suited to drawing—neutral, tired, expressive in a way that didn’t push too hard.

I was working primarily in ink at the time, using fine liners and technical pens on smooth paper. The line work came together quickly, and so did the phrase. A Waste of Time felt like the right thing to include, though I didn’t stop to question what it referred to. It was part of the same moment. Not an afterthought, just a thought that happened to make it into the drawing.

The color was added last. I had been using crayons on some of my ink drawings around then, partly out of boredom and partly because they introduced a kind of resistance I liked. Crayons are blunt and unruly. They don’t blend well, and they don’t behave. I liked the way their rough texture clashed with the cleaner lines of the ink. There’s something inherently silly about crayons that pushes back against any attempt to take the drawing too seriously. That contrast was important.

Like most things I was making during that time, it came together quickly and without much planning. I wasn’t trying to make a statement. It just felt like something worth following through on.