Forest floor

Fragments of the big drawing...
My big works seem to be composed of many small drawings.
Hal and I were hiking in the mountains up near Wintergreen this weekend... winter still hangs on there and snowdrops are just poking their heads up out of the ground. Trails were carpets of gnawed-open acorns, deer prints and spring green moss-covered rock. Spider webs held sun catching dew drops and scallops of white fungus clung to dying tree trunks. All knitted together to create a forest.

Fra-a-a-g-men-ta-tion

The floor of my studio under the big drawing is alive with byproducts of art making; of building up (china marker) and tearing down (eraser crumbs).
Clutter, fragments and pieces live on the floor, on the tables, in baskets and cupboards, and my head. Everything I see here seems half-assembled, or half taken apart; half begun or half finished. Not a completed thought in the room.
Hmmmm. Maybe it's OK that nothing ever actually 'arrives' at its destination. In the end it's the pieces that stay with me. The joy, the sense of rightness is found in a small curved red line, or the shape of a white bird against a jet black field (more details of the drawing tomorrow).

Interior landscape

Mmmm. Or still life with silly string.
Or lost in the wilderness (I've been reading a novel about monks in the forest on winter nights).
My head says I should be drawing simple. My hand just does what it wants to.

Burnished china marker over ink pen.
14" x 11"

Why is it so hard to make a small good idea a big good idea?

Here's a detail of the great big drawing I've been working on... I'm giving myself 'til the end of the week to figure it out. Then I must move on.
I'm digging the collage (the soft gray areas) and the burnished black china marker. And the bronze color. And the playfulness. Hmmmm. Maybe this will work.

Under-drawing

These are details from a large (7.5' x 4.5') drawing on paper I began over the weekend. There's already been one big bout of erasing and probably more (recorded and erased history?) to come. I like the back- and-forth rhythm between adding and subtracting, building up and destroying. I've been thinking a lot about how we remember ... and revise, and forget ourselves.
I just finished reading Paul Harding's Tinkers. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Studies

It's been another great Saturday. A long week of no drawing (and lots of work) led to a great day of 45 small ink drawings (here are a few) ... they influence a new series of big works which I'll begin documenting tomorrow.

It's been a great day

I love Saturdays filled with working and playing and running and drawing. Spring is in the air today.

Here I've gone back into an old ballpoint pen drawing ... finally knew what it needed. All the different styles I'm using lately will define the upcoming series of large drawings. Looking forward to it.