Monkey's back, preliminary sketch

I feel such a sadness today and don't have a single spare second to draw. Why must the thing I want to do the most in life always get the least amount of my time and energy?

Persimmon, made of cloth and a stem

It's the time of year when I feel an almost painful longing for Japan. In the face of all that I have to do, and don't want to do, I took an hour to burn incense from Kyoto, play music from the Oki islands, and sketch. Then I sailed away on this persimmon over swirling stone gardens and bowls of green tea.

This persimmon is made of orange cloth attached to a real stem. I bought it at a flea market in Kyoto from an old lady who was making them under bright red leaves.

Yoga props

I wanted to try out the oil pastels that have been sitting on my shelf for years. I wasn't sure if they had dried up, and I couldn't even remember how oil pastels work. I started to scribble on some paper, ended up sketching the yoga block that sat in front of me, then couldn't stop sketching props until the page filled up.

Tea pot

Carol recommended a book called "Eternal truths for every artist" by Harley Brown. It's out of print and expensive, but I splurged and it was well worth it. I drew this tea pot with Harley Brown's style in mind, though it's the information that he shares, not his style, that's important.

Unmade bed

Early morning act of rebellion.

The last pickle

My friend Lauren makes the best pickles. Louie declared them "The best goddam pickles in the Universe". She uses maple syrup to sweeten them. I was just making a tuna sandwich when I noticed there was only one left. Goodbye, pickle.

Yoga strap

I just returned from a day long workshop on how to integrate yoga with traditional rehabilitation. It was excellent. I often think about the ways yoga and drawing connect, and thought I'd share one of those ways here.

I've noticed that my favorite drawings are ones that hit the marks but have a sense of breath. Meaning, they have correct proportion but the strokes retain a sense of life and freedom. Carol describes it as being loose but accurate. Drawings like that are very hard to do, but always look like they landed on the page easily. The problem is, in struggling to get accurate proportion you can lose the life of the mark, and in trying to retain a quick mark the correct measurements can be missed.

In yoga, there is action and resistance in every pose, meaning, that while one part is grounding into the earth, another part is rising toward the heavens. The feet are grounding, the arms are lifting upward. But even within the arms, the shoulders are grounding, the fingertips are rising, and even within the fingertips... And when you focus too much on the technical aspects of holding the pose you can forget to breathe, yet when you focus so much on your breath and forget your body it can be hard to come back down to earth.

I think it's the most satisfying thing, to the eye, to the body, to the spirit, to be simultaneously grounded and free. It's hard to get there, and then to maintain, but ah, those moments...

Savior

I was complaining about the blisters I get from sharpening my colored pencils by hand, so Louie unearthed this from a box in the back of his closet. An electric pencil sharpener! He said he bought it when he started his business thirty years ago and hasn't used it since.

The end of the fair

I was unhappy with this drawing until I noticed how well it captures the way it feels after you've been at the fair a little too long and think you can handle just one more treat. A caramel apple wouldn't have been a problem if you hadn't also had a corn dog, fried dough, are overheated, and have been looking at too much airbrushed art. You feel like you just got off the Tilt-a-whirl, even though you haven't been on that ride in twenty years.

I love looking at all the art displays at the fair. While some of the work isn't my style and some may, perhaps, be "not good", I'm just in awe that so many people out there are making the effort to paint and draw. I mean, it's just so much easier not to.

Hand knit finger puppet

Only $1 at the state fair! I found this guy in a huge basket filled with hand knit finger puppets from Peru. Is he one of the Three Kings? Someone from an Arabian folk tale? He's holding a staff, which is all curled up because it's made out of yarn. I'm not quite sure who he is but he was the only one of his kind amongst the elephants, giraffes, and octopi.

I thought it would be an interesting challenge to try to draw something made out of yarn. I wish I could've better captured the fuzziness of the fiber. If I were to do this same drawing again I would draw him much smaller on the page, to emphasize what it felt like to find this lone finger puppet who was not like the others.

A large wooden pickle and some people

The first image is the wooden sign on a dill pickle vendor's stand. The next few are of Aztec dancers at the Indian Village. The last drawing is my favorite. It's of some members of a band called Impresion! performing in the Spanish Village. As I was drawing an old man came up to see what I was doing. He told me the man on the right is his son.

I had so much fun gesture drawing at the state fair that I ran out of paper. I ended up using both sides which caused the pictures to rub off onto each other. I wasn't happy about that but I didn't want to stop drawing. Next year I'll go with more time and more paper.

Horses and a balloon

The cowgirls were found next door at the miniature horse show. I wonder if I captured the quiet stillness in the arena on that early morning, the only sound being the judge's announcements and a muzac version of "Dust in the wind".

Picture #1 was my first drawing of the day, when I was unsure whether or not I could really draw a horse. I remember how in sixth grade all the girls loved to draw horses. It came just before they stopped drawing altogether.

State fair critters

Texas longhorns

I thought the state fair would be a great opportunity to try some gesture drawings of animals, something I don't have a lot of experience with. Look what I happened upon, the Texas longhorn competition! It opened with seven cowboys riding enormous longhorns, and dressed entirely in red, white, and blue. The second picture is of them as they waited outside the arena. After entry, they lined up in front of us (us being twenty cowboys and myself sitting on the cold bleachers) and one of them broke into song. He sang "The star spangled banner", "America, the beautiful", and led us in the pledge of alliegence and a fully denominational prayer. It would have been an amazing drawing opportunity, being face to face with those cowboys and longhorns, but I stood, wide eyed, with my hand over my heart.

Longhorns do not stand still! Especially calves. While I couldn't get a good drawing of a calf, I think the fifth picture captures their jittery energy. Kids don't stand still either. I sat next to one wiggly young cowboy waiting his turn whose mother barked, "Are you here to play? Or are you here to show!"

Bali bird

This is a detail from a large wooden carving of a dancer surrounded by birds and scrolling vegetation. It looks like it's from Indonesia. Louie and I discovered it at a yard sale a few years ago. An addition to the "Birds around the world" series.

Scribble dancer

I started a drawing today that I couldn't finish in time to post, so I'm showing something I drew 36 years ago. I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce the amazing Lynda Barry. She's had a profound effect on my understanding of, and return to, creativity. There's SO much to say about the lessons I've learned from her that I wanted to introduce her now so you will know who I'm talking about in future posts. She's brilliant in her ability to express the creative journey from childhood to adulthood, describing how most of us abandon that journey somewhere along the way when we begin to ask two questions of our art work:

"Is this good?" and, "Does this suck?"

Those two questions hold us hostage until we can't make anything at all. It doesn't appear that the four year old me had those questions in mind as she drew. Lynda notes how children make marks on a page, follow them, then create a story, while adults want to think up the story, put it on the page, then get frustrated when it doesn't come out "right". She teaches how to water ski behind an idea, allowing it to take you where it wants to go. And she calls out, "To all the kids who quit drawing...come back!"

Good fortune

Look what I got in my fortune cookie last night! I had to ask for a second cookie so I could take it home and draw it. It made me think about the strange thing that happens to many artists, I know I'm not alone in this. We tend to want to make art only when we're in the mood to do so, but when we do make art we want it to be "good". A soccer player would never expect to win if he didn't practice, just counting on his talent to emerge on the day of the game.

I think part of it comes from associating art making with feeling good. We don't want to make art when we're not in the mood for it, but when we're in the mood for it and what we make isn't "good", we feel miserable. That feeling makes us put it off again, and the roller coaster goes around and around. Doing this blog has helped me to see that the only way to improve is to practice, and the only way to practice is through force.

Pinecone

I found this pinecone when Louie and I went hiking in the Sangre de Cristo mountains last weekend. I tried pastel on hot press watercolor paper just to see what would happen. I enjoyed the texture but it quickly became impossible to layer the colors, each new mark pushed the previous one off like a snow plough. I like the way the shadow turned out though.

Dove

Shampoo and conditioner.

The monkey's back

I wanted to show you the pattern on her back. Ooh I love this little monkey!

Something wonderful has occurred. My colored pencils have been worn down into short stubs that I can barely hold on to. It's wonderful because I've had the same set of colored pencils for well over ten years.

Saru

I bought this sweet little monkey at a store in Takayama, Japan that sold figures made out of printed fabric, cut and sewn into simple shapes. There was a basket for each animal of the zodiac. I bought two, a monkey for the year I was born, and a horse for the year I fell in love with Japan.

Sponge

Too busy to do the dishes, but still drawing every day!

Flowering heart

More love. I bought these milagros this summer in Oaxaca. Longing for a bowl of hot chocolate with cinnamon and chile right now...

Sacred heart

I drew this milagro in honor of my Uncle David, who is recovering from open heart surgery.

Strainer

Juggling graduate school, work, and daily art making is quite straining.

The end of the roll

Shrimp tempura. I can draw faster when I'm hungry.

My Eye

Are you looking at me?

Black fabric elephant

Another day, another elephant.

Green fabric elephant

Feeling a bit better today. Another elephant.

Red fabric elephant

I'm sick today, some mysterious stomach bug. I got myself out of bed long enough to draw this red fabric elephant from Thailand. I hope she looks better than I feel!