Illustration Friday: Teacher

Each piece that you make is its own teacher. You might have an idea (and I did for this one--I even have a couple of sketches, which is rare for me, who is so impatient to be in the midst of the piece itself), and so you start on that idea. But the piece itself has its own ideas, and you have to pay attention to those, because it will teach you what you need to do.

This is the same for poetry as well, and music, and probably just about any other creative endeavor. A good musician is not the one who is technically adept (though that certainly helps), but the one who can hear the music and bring it out.

I'm not saying this is a brilliant picture or anything, but I did pay attention to it, and ended up doing things I didn't initially have in mind.

On the other hand, I wonder when I'm going to get tired of all these twisted things. I'm certainly not yet.

Gouache Guy (girl) #3

Here's another of the ones I started the day before yesterday. This is all in the name of experimentation, though now I'm seeing that I'm doing the exact same thing with the gouache that I was doing with the watercolors and water-soluable painting crayons (which ARE gouache, in a different form). But I have some ideas of directions to go....

(This is not a good scan, by the way. The orange lines are way darker here than on the original, and I have no idea how to adjust that in any of my programs.)

Gouache Guy #2

See, things get uglier when I get more deliberate, but that's the only path to take. I'm a teacher and back at school, but during my free moments, all I'm wanting to do is come home and work on gouache paintings. I'm expected there to be quite a learning curve.

Gouache!

I've never used gouache before, but I ordered some last week, and it just arrived. This is my experimental paper--you know, the one where you try out every color to see what it looks like, and then it slowly becomes something. I think I'm going to really like this medium. Lots of possibilities for edges, and I do love edges. And texture. I will definitely limit my palette, though. This is EVERYTHING.

Illustration Friday: Frozen

Frozen in time. It starts so innocently. You hear a melody, a beautiful, haunting melody, from somewhere deep in the forest. And you follow it. If you happen to be a fiddler, and happen to have your fiddle with you, you'll get it out, and try to play along. And before you know it, you're lost in the fairy music, and you are lost in time. You have no idea how time is passing. It could only be moments, but it could also be centuries.

(This drawing is big, by the way (12X14")--way bigger than my scanner--which is why there is a reflection on it from photographing it.)

Mandolin Player

When you play music, you are alone in the world of the music. But not lonely. Connected to the pulse, connected to the other musicians, connected to the world, even when you close your eyes.

I think I'm ready for a different medium. I'm not sure what exactly. I almost wish I could do oil paints. Could I?

(This is a water soluble black pencil. I did the drawing and then laid a wet paper towel over it to "melt" the pencil.)

I'm really wanting to take an art class at the Arts Center, to learn something new, and to have a couple hours a week dedicated to making art, but nothing is really striking me, and the life drawing sessions are too expensive.....