Rolling the dice, Part II

Though I love messing around with sketchbooks,  once you have assembled and stitched together a group of pristine pages, it takes courage to make the first mark. So Roll the Dice! The choice of color and tool is now out of your hands, and it becomes a game, with nothing to win, nothing to lose. I bought myself a set of cheap gouache tubes at the grocery store, which included colors I never pick up (really, dayglow pink? lime green?), numbered them, and followed orders. As this practice evolved, I got more adventurous (tear! gouge! burn!)…and still later, simplified the commands to just three colors and just three actions, and six rolls from start to finish, to avoid the “everything but the kitchen sink” look. Here is a selection of sketchbook pages for which I relied completely on the roll of the dice each decision. (Click on a thumbnail to enlarge it.)

 

 

 

Little books

Sometimes you need to put away all your stalled projects, and get a fresh start. Thinking small and free, and “unimportant”, I tore whole sheets of drawing paper into eight horizontal strips, and folded them into pocket sized books. I quickly realized what a good playground they provide….

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I have been making marks with anything on hand, dripping wax, applying joint compound, scraping some off, gluing on recycled strips from old work, spraying with liquid inks, sanding everything down, brushing on a layer of acrylic…so little cost, so much fun!

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Here are my favorite mark makers of the moment, made from popsicle sticks and beer cans. (Yes!)  And here is a week’s worth of little books, hanging from the clothesline.

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(verso)

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One thing I am liking about these strips is that they have a front and a back–twice as much fun for your money!

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(and here are the backs)

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And when they are done, you fold them back up, stow them in nearly no space, and start a new strip! If I remember, I will keep one in my purse for scribbling while waiting in line–a jumping off point once back in the studio.

How to draw your grandmother

During the recent visit of Martin (7) and Alexander (13), I spent some time on the other side of the drawing board! Martin–whose drawings usually spring from his vivid imagination, and tend to feature mythological battle scenes and severed limbs, drew my portrait, while Alexander acted as cameraman.  It was a fascinating experience. Never in my life have I been so carefully scrutinized; no wrinkle or bulge slipped by undocumented!

I’ve trimmed the twelve minutes of footage down to three, and added a soundtrack of Ronn McFarlane playing “Passemeze”. Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/O_rX9GWWzwE

Bonfire of the Vanities

Every decade or so, a person should do a little house cleaning, and my studio is frankly overdue. One clue is that the wall behind a large drawing folder,"recycle or pitch!", has become damp and crumbly since I last sprang into action. Another is that there is no available surface except the ironing board to empty the contents onto…

And so last week I emptied one folder onto the ironing board for a major purge, and then the next, and the next. By the time the second garbage can was full, Jacques handed me a box of matches, and history took its course.

It felt exhilarating, but also a little scary. Is it such a good idea to destroy 90% of your drawings just because they long ago served their purpose, and you don't want your children to have to agonize over them? I think next time I will photograph the borderline pieces before lighting the match. But I do feel less encumbered, which is good. And I find this photo of a model awaiting her fiery fate has a power the original drawing never did!