Break On Through
From here to where?
You can’t think of a drawing. You can only live through it.
Like a diary, a sheet of paper collects your thoughts, showing the shape of your mind’s eye, the acknowledgement of your contextual definition. It is not for the cowardly. Better to be intense, mad to feel the sensation of life expressed in your line on the page.
There is no being careful. Line combines memory and vision and your own sense is unique. You have only to discover what you see and feel. The tool has to make contact, travel, and lift. It will follow your suggestions as you pause, sometimes changing direction abruptly. It will respond to angle and speed.
The tool is in your hand.
Make it dark and archival, to endure, so it will be there when you reflect back. No fading inks, no dusty residue. This is a spontaneous drawing of a continuous line that is guided by the consecutive letters of the alphabet, all connected as it travels around the page and expands and contracts to fill the area.
If you use soft media such as charcoal, it will smudge, sometimes quite beautifully, as shown in this layered drawing, a study of superimposed numerical forms by Jasper Johns. He says about the art process: “Do something, do something to that, and then do something to that.” The artist causes a chain of events through cognitive perceptions.
The surface is close by.
Paper or cloth, leather or wood, concrete or ground, use whatever is at hand with your choice of tool. You can try an exercise using equally spaced randomly placed marks, with a goal of 50/50 black to white. In this example of black and white paint on a newspaper surface you can tell where the gaps and intervals are tight or generous. The black marks become further defined as shapes when applying the white.
The subject is always in front of you.
A collectible or a bottle, a sink full of dishes, a smoke, a twig, a letterform, pattern or shape. What you see is because of the light that falls on it. You draw the edge formed between shadow and light. What you actually learn is how you see, how you translate what you see into line, and how you can ignore insignificant bits.
This drawing of mine makes little sense. One might call it a “bad” drawing, since it doesn’t communicate much, nor is it “art” which should offer a transformative experience for the viewer. But if you then drew a new drawing with this drawing as its subject, it would be possible to bring it closer to a rhythmical composition with attention to all formal relationships, working with balance and hierarchy. It’s the process of distilling from the original.
Envision the composition, where the shapes will land on the page. In some cases you might scribble a rough draft to kickstart your ideas for placement. Mix up the shapes, overlap, omit, and add. See if you respond to anything that happens, then continue to refine. It’s a process.
Breathe slowly and begin.
Leave everything behind and drive your lead (pencil). Drawings are often called “studies” and this is because they receive 100% of your focus. Don’t censor your subject. Just explore, and you will notice the qualities that appear.
Thank you all for reading and enjoying my posts. It’s great to be here with you.
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