More meanderings through my sketchbook

The last few weeks I've continued working/playing/experimenting in my sketchbook.  It has been one of the most freeing periods of my artistic life.  I don't think I've ever before given myself such a stretch of time without goals or expectations to produce for a series or a show.  My perfectionism has, thankfully, taken a back seat, and my playfulness has come to the fore.

Here are some pictures I've done lately:

Street scene of Main St across the street from the Visual Arts Center.  Practicing one point perspective.  Pen and ink, watercolor, and graphite.

Pattern I more or less copied from a book about visual journaling.  Pen, ink, watercolor, watercolor pencils, wax crayons.

I gave my student the assignment of drawing an apple 10 times in 80 minutes.  I decided to do the same thing.  Until I got going - I couldn't let go of the prettiness of it and wanted to complete the drawing. I started in watercolor then my student wanted to use them so I had to move on - I switched to color pencil after that

After I finished the above apple, I went on to another one.  First I glued some random Dur-a-Lar to the paper just to give me some different textures to play with, then I painted it in acrylics.  I was fascinated to note how the paint acted on the Dur-a-Lar as compared to the regular drawing paper.  It resisted.  I used gold paint for the highlights on the apple.

Sometimes what I do in the sketchbook is affirmations or assertions

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I let myself be bold.  This was one of those times.

Zendoodles are never far away.  This one is Micron pens on Dur-a-Lar.

I use my sketchbook when I'm in figure drawing sessions on Friday evenings at the Visual Arts Center (all are welcome - $6/person - it's a great opportunity to draw from the model)  Sometimes my drawings aren't all that successful because I'm still learning to work from the figure from life.  The picture on the left is how it looked after 20 min.  then I brought it home and had a great time cutting up magazines and making it into something completely different.  Whether the pieces are skillful or not, I'm learning so much from doing them.  It is changing the way I approach art completely.

This is the same model.  I drew the gesture drawing with green Micron then put the body on it with a graphite pencil.  I used the scrap from a magazine to glue it into the sketchbook because glue doesn't seem to work too well on Dur-a-Lar.

A friend told me about this quote.  I thought it was worth noting:  "There's a crack in everything.  that's how the light gets in."  Leonard Cohen

Workin' my stuff.  And what a great place to do it.

This postcard was my place marker at my niece's wedding I went to lately.  Va Beach in the old days.

Another picture from figure drawing sessions.  I love how the white and black look on the red background.  This one made me happy.

21 things that didn't work that night when I was 16.

 

An earlier figure drawing session.  I drew the figure on Dur-a-Lar which is slightly see through - it's translucent - then did a pattern on the page behind it.  I'm intrigued by the juxtaposition of the two.

Allowing myself to play.  Zendoodles.  Colors.  Sumi ink, micron pen, watercolors, on rice paper.

As you can see, I'm not sticking to any one medium or paper or subject or type of creation.  Whatever arises is what gets expressed.  It's a very right brain way of approaching art.  I'll write more about the difference in my next post.  In the meantime, I'm enjoying these meanderings and am very curious to see where they're going...

Don't Mess with Me - enhanced

 The last week or so I've been working on a series of small paintings, 6"x6", of fruits and vegetables with patterns in the background.  I originally started painting them because I had 4 small canvases and wanted to do something fun and simple one day.

When Chris came out and took a look at them, he hung them up next to Don't Mess with Me which also has a strong pattern in the background and suggested that I surround the canvas with 20 small canvases like that with fun and funky patterns.  The model's expression is so strong that she still dominates the scene, but the fruits and vegetables give the viewer LOTS to look at and delight in. 

Today we talked bout how to build the frame and think we'll make it like a shelf into which the small canvases slide.  We may leave a few of the openings empty for the purchaser to fill him/herself, or maybe we'll put real fruit into it.  It's very fun playing with the ideas for it.

 

The picture here gives an idea of sort of how it might look, but I've only done 11 small canvases so used some of them twice in this image.  I wanted to be able to see how I like it to see if it it needs tweaking or not.  This version of it will be 45.5"x45.5" when finished.

Chris is going to have to develop some more woodworking skills to create the frame for it!  I also figure I could sell the smaller fruits separately during a show if anyone were interested.  I think it's always wise to have some smaller works available for purchase.

This piece is quite different from anything else I've done, and I don't really think it's the start of a new direction, but it's very fun playing with a new idea and taking it to its (natural?) conclusion.  It's wonderful brainstorming with Chris and see where our combined imaginations take us.