Tubers

There's always a connection between what I'm doing day to day and what I'm drawing. Sometimes the drawing comes first and the connection second. Like this drawing I made yesterday at the laundromat and a potful of creepy tubers found under the sweet potato vine today.

Just draw

I packed a box with a couple of cactus ears. They are going to Milwaukee to live with my sister-in-law. In the last few days, all my drawings have cactus ears in them.
A friend asked me once how you know, when drawing, that you are drawing from your own sub-conscious self, or the collective unconscious or simply influenced by you exterior environment. I said you just have to trust.
But now I think it just doesn't matter.

Fire

The most interesting thing about this drawing for me was turning it around, viewing it from all sides. Really dramatic changes.

Flow and balance

Today I was working on a big drawing with a china marker, but this small ink sketch I did later in the day was infinitely more satisfying to make... Why? I dunno.

Work in progress finally finished

Yesterday I was happy to discover a subtle freedom in drawing within a grid. Today I blew it all by thinking ... Will it be boring if I continue on to the end? What if I leave it unfinished? What if I leave it just slightly unfinished?

Why o why can I not just let the work unfold as it will?

Work in progress

Freedom to make marks without intention occurs within structure. Ritual, repetition, meditative drawing... there's something so right about drawing that line, thinking only "that line" and not "how does that line interact with the line before and the line after."

Como esta?

A drawing of a "thing" morphs into a drawing of a thing in space... floating layering, changing, drifting away.

Petals, pedals, paddles

Trying to capture a slow flapping – no, swaying – in the breeze, though it's too late in the season for new life. Must be ghosts then, huddled together for company, safety, strength ... seem sort of hopeful, don't they?

Stacking

Today I was laying bricks in the backyard... such a repetitive, almost ritual quality to the process. One after the other, atop and alongside. Reminds me how everything fits together. Even when I'm pretty sure they don't.

I finished this tiny drawing last night at work, but gosh if I'm not more enamored by a page torn out of my notebook... roughly sketched with the section front I was laying out and a few story names and scribbles. It says so much to me about living and working in the physical world. It's both a bit mysterious and purposeful.

Node

Or black hole or outer space or my soul? Recorder of deeds and misdeeds. Collector and keeper of toxins. Maybe filtering out the bad stuff... hmmm

Instead of the bird

I was saddened to find this morning that an animal had made 0ff with my sweet dead baby bird. Late last night I'd wrapped him in plastic and hung him from the live oak outside my studio. It's always worked before... but here I am late on Thursday night with no bird drawing and watching a Jeff Tweedy concert DVD...
I've just had a good idea for a series of drawings... spent the morning looking at cerebral Web Sites that remind me of drawing issues like repetitive mark making and ritual and meditation and found drawing and random line and all that stuff that used to rock my world... I know that I draw every day, but I don't draw enough.
So, here's to drawing as a big part of one's day and drawing as a way to spend good life.

Stress remedy

Wow I was suffering a bit today (worry etc. pointless I know) and here's how I got rid of it... I think it started out as skin and morphed into something else. I like the small points of light in the darkness. Anyway, I'm feeling much better now.
Have sketchbook, will work it out.

Cats and birds

I think the best part of this drawing is the cat's face, the awkward, blunt lines. Marks not thought about, just made.
Today I was looking at a few drawing sites on line. I know I work too much in a vacuum, and sure can use some camaraderie. I'd forgotten how intellectual one can get about drawing... and I struggle with balance. Sometimes just doing it is enough for me.

Influenced by everything

OK, what fun to mix media. Allowing what might happen to actually happen. An ink/stick drawing, allowed to dry in my notebook goes with me and gets worked on throughout the day.

The day long

This was a big drawing day: working on the hawk wing in the morning with big 6bs; then an illustration for tomorrow's business page about lying on one's resume.
So, this picture is one of last night's small drawings... so many fish bodies unwrapped. Or bowling pins. Or tubers of some sort. Why-o-why do I indulge in this game of trying to figure out what it is? I should just go to bed. Good night.

A good Virginia day

Long shadows to the east of us as we walked on the beach after work... clean sand, lots of birds and not many oyster shells. Friday night in Spring, no worries, just some sorrow and some regret. The only way out is through.
Here's an image from the archives, very west coast of Ireland. Cheers.