On the road again

Headed down to Key West for the rest of the week. I'll leave you with another one of the practice images. NOT the colors I hope to be using tomorrow when drawing banyan trees and lizards.

Will try to post new drawings while we're gone from Hal's cell phone. Have a great week!

Muraling

Sometimes small pieces have really big voices.

Drawing and adding torn pieces of other drawings. It makes me think of urban landscape – everybody is on their way to work.

Graphite, crayon and colored pencil with collage. 7 x 14

Practice practice practice

I made four of these this week. I think of them like practicing scales or jogging the same route every Tuesday. When I don't know what to draw, it's OK to just draw. There's always something new to been found.

I love that story about the monk who hides treasure in the subconscious for a later lifetime when it will be of use to him/her/humankind/me.

Acrylic and graphite on paper, 22 x 30

Sidling in

Hal's told everyone that I've been back in the studio today, so I guess I'll post the drawings I'm working on. I took a batch of photos of this object created for a road-kill sort of video I was thinking about... I like drawing over photographs, making new worlds out of old worlds.

Ireland Drawing 3

Untitled, 8'7" x 5', acrylic (monotype), paraffin and graphite on Fabriano

Wondering if this is two, or maybe even three drawings. I put in the darkness to give the eye a place to rest; from here it makes me think of fog and zombies.

Notes from the journal (see Oct. 17 entry): Sat., Sept. 18 – Quiet here in the studio. It's a luxury to float around, working on this one and that one. Hang three big works at a time and battle my inner demons.

Finished with big tribal piece of last couple days. It will be easy to animate. Different elements move or pulse slightly; very slow with lots of spaces in between. Gong or drum ... sneak in the occasional surprise. Trick of the eye?

Ireland Drawing 2

This drawing, 9 feet x 5 feet, was made over 2 days in the studio. I seem to have had a touch of horror vacuii at the time ...

Notes from the journal, Monday Sept. 13: There's nowhere I'd rather be than here in the studio. It's darkly raining and very hard. Three stark white walls surround me.

Been drawing now all morning and see I have come to that place where I "wake up," loosen up and begin to SEE. But not before there are several really tight small areas in my great big drawing. No matter. Where I mean to be hugely gestural, I have come down to the microcosm. Think maybe I should spend my first hours everyday on a throw-away. But then, that might end up being the best one – in my old contrariness.

I drew all day in the hope of discovering something that "works." And I did. Plus lots of things not working so well (opportunities for problem-solving!). I'm intrigued by a couple of simple lined figures, one at the left wearing a deep crown and another at the bottom right, outlined with twisted legs up. Plus that rich flowing dark water at bottom center. Very fluid.

The Ireland drawings

I recently spent four weeks in Ireland, working out of a studio at Burren College. I meant to post the work here as I went along, but never could get my camera or its chip to talk to their computers ... so I'll put them up now, one or two at a time, and add noted from my journal.

It was wonderful to be back in County Clare with friends from the village and new students at the school. I worked everyday and loved being away from the responsibilities of home as they tend to interrupt art-making.

I went with the idea of producing a body of large drawings on paper (having, for a change, a large studio) ... which I did. As often happens, however, the universe took me in a somewhat different direction. This drawing was the first one I finished, it measures about 7 feet by 5 feet and was made with my usual graphite, paraffin and crayon on Fabriano.

Here are my journal notes about making it, Friday, Sept. 10: It's Day One of studio work. Walked up from the village and spent the morning sweeping out my space and cutting paper. It's cold press and not taking the graphite well.

So, spent five hours on the first piece – it has a lovely sort of brushed motion to it. It's good, but am having to scrub and that means a lot of dust.

Tomorrow will soldier on – Work changes in an evolutionary way for me. So, what do I want to see happen?

Day Four: Now I am going back into the first drawing with a cloak of mystery. Oppression? No. Suppression? Maybe. Something to hide?

And TA DA!! I did it. It's good. Something hidden. Something revealed. Seeded like I channeled Chagall ... and I hardly know Chagall. With Bauhaus overtones (from five days in Berlin with my friend Bernadette). God, I love Europe.