Shades in your Mind

What do you see when you close your eyes? What anxieties and worries are always there, preying on your peace of mind, that you don't notice when you are busy? But when you take a moment and shut your eyes, they clench at your stomach, and twist your mind, and the world seems an impossible and tangled place indeed.

But if I remember to breathe, I can feel the strain dissipating, the shoulders relaxing, the world becoming calmer. When I remember to breathe, I am more aware of the here and now, the place where I am right now, and nowhere else, and this is where I need to be when I open my eyes as well.

Various sketches

So here are a few assorted sketches from the last several weeks, two from the newspaper that I did at school when I was bored (you know, when the kids were all working and didn't want me looking over their shoulders, and I didn't feel like grading), and the other from an 8 hour car ride when I was bored. I imagine it's pretty obvious which is which.

Illustration Friday: Yield

Okay, so I didn't make it before the next week's topic was posted, but I STARTED it during the proper week. Parent-teacher conferences just took too much of my time.

But "yield"--I think of all the times in one's life when one has to just stop fighting and go with the flow. Childbirth is one of them, but there are a whole lot more where resistance will get you no where. You have to just let go. That's what these two people are doing. They are flowing with the universe. It enters them, and they channel it through their own uniqueness, but they're not controlling it at all.

I seek to be more like that. More here in the "now" and going with the flow of the moment. Resistance causes stress. Stomach-aches and head-aches. And it's pointless, because the rest of the world will just go on the way it was going in the first place. Of course I believe that what I do makes a difference, that the world is a better place because I am here, but I am aware of my sphere of influence....

But is this better as a vertical or a horizontal?

Old Nordic-fest guy

So...it is my INTENTION to make art. Please please please let me make time to make art. I WILL.

And here's another portrait to add to my collection of portraits that don't look like the people who are being portrayed, and another picture to add to my collection of pictures I don't like very much. My son and I were just talking about it, and how you have to make the pictures you DON'T like in order to get to the pictures you DO like. I suppose, though, that if one were self-reflective about the ones that one doesn't like that one might move to the ones one does like faster.

But anyway. It is what it is. I never did find my jug of India ink. I think it was a quart jug, and there just aren't that many places a quart jug of ink can hide. So I ordered another one, and it came, and I must say that it pleases me no end to use real pens again, ones that you dip in the ink and that have flexible nibs so that one can vary one's lines, and also make long lines.

Illustration Friday: Capable

This is the reason I could never be a portrait artist--my people never look like who they're supposed to look like. And it's because I'm too "loose" with my reference material. I look to it for the details that I wouldn't be able to imagine myself, but it doesn't really matter all that much to me, so it's just a touchpoint, and not the gospel truth. But this is my sweetie. My son was looking at the picture and said, "but he doesn't look like that," and no he doesn't. When I was doing the ink, or maybe when I was putting on the mask, or even when I was sketching, I somehow let the face get too wide. And then once I started inking the ears, it couldn't be fixed. So this is what my sweetie might look like if his face were really round instead of long. I'm okay with that, though. This isn't a portrait. What was important in this picture for me was his expression, which this totally got, and the way-cool design of the sweatshirt hood and multiple layers he was wearing. Also the texture.

But as far as capable goes, he is it. He makes his living as a handy-man, and can fix or build anything--beautifully. He doesn't make as much money as he could because he also spends much of his time growing figs and other cool things, and researching, and playing music. That's the way life should be, and this picture feels like that to me, and it really doesn't matter who he looks like. When you make a picture, the person in the picture becomes real.

Meeting Sketches

No time for making art--just meetings. So these are meeting sketches. It's interesting drawing people in meetings. They move, all the time, even the ones who LOOK like they're sitting really still. So you have to keep waiting for them to go back to their original position--or the one that you determined was the "default" position. It's a rough kind of exercise, but okay.

I find that I am ALWAYS looking at the planes on people's faces, and the angles and contours and volumes of people, whether I am drawing them at the moment or not. I wonder how long I'd have to quit drawing before I would stop doing that. Or maybe, the reason I am compelled to draw is because I do that all the time (and I think that I always have)....

SO, though I'd like to do some REAL art projects (surely surely surely I can start something this weekend), I AM drawing.....

Sort-of scary sunshine portrait

Please please please let me get my life in order so that I have TIME to work on art projects. School is just kicking my butt. Too much stress! Bthis picture isn't even finished, because I have NO TIME!