Breaking Just a Little Bit
So many changes in the last several weeks...too many to mention each and every one. There was a transition of a relationship from one aspect to a different one, and the adjustment to that. There was a two-year journal-versary that went unmarked. There was a birthday that was marked by many, and very sweetly. There was an art show wherein a creation of mine was widely appreciated for its charm and motif. There was a painting begun with fervor, and then abandoned when the fire went out. There was the return back to drumming, wherein an urge to experiment led to bold moves and letting my sounds be heard.
There is currently the desire to artistically swerve direction, to loosen the controls and let intuition be the ruling force. To Klimt! To John Singer Sargent! I took a life drawing class a couple of years ago, and the most important thing I learned from the instructor was to observe. That’s all. Really observe the person, how they live in their body, and draw it. It’s not enough to know anatomy—each and every person has a different body type and lives in their body a different way (the posture, the patterning of facial expressions, muscle development). Draw that. And not perfectly. Brushy strokes, sketchy lines. I asked my artist friend how to let my mind go slack, and got advice from him to work with patterns, to just let intuition show me, second by second, what to do. No ideas, no plans, no research, no relying on my artist training...just geometric patterns, with the colors of the spectrum, imperfectly executed, feeling my way across the paper. To just let my mind, with all its obsession to control, break down and go away for a while.
I’ve begun a page in my sketchbook, with colored pencils. How lovely to let my mind go away, with no thoughts of the outcome, no thoughts that it has to look like anything recognizable...I may fill up entire sketchbooks full of these. The evolution should be remarkable. And when my mind is crumpled like newspaper, maybe then I can also begin to do paintings that can be felt.
There is currently the desire to artistically swerve direction, to loosen the controls and let intuition be the ruling force. To Klimt! To John Singer Sargent! I took a life drawing class a couple of years ago, and the most important thing I learned from the instructor was to observe. That’s all. Really observe the person, how they live in their body, and draw it. It’s not enough to know anatomy—each and every person has a different body type and lives in their body a different way (the posture, the patterning of facial expressions, muscle development). Draw that. And not perfectly. Brushy strokes, sketchy lines. I asked my artist friend how to let my mind go slack, and got advice from him to work with patterns, to just let intuition show me, second by second, what to do. No ideas, no plans, no research, no relying on my artist training...just geometric patterns, with the colors of the spectrum, imperfectly executed, feeling my way across the paper. To just let my mind, with all its obsession to control, break down and go away for a while.
I’ve begun a page in my sketchbook, with colored pencils. How lovely to let my mind go away, with no thoughts of the outcome, no thoughts that it has to look like anything recognizable...I may fill up entire sketchbooks full of these. The evolution should be remarkable. And when my mind is crumpled like newspaper, maybe then I can also begin to do paintings that can be felt.
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