Something Different--The Basics

A Santa Monica Hill,  5X7",  Ink, Prismacolor

Long Shadows, 5X7",  Prismacolor 

Roadside, 5X7", Prismacolor

Something a little different.  Maybe a bit rusty, but I do love drawing with indigo pencils.  My first love is drawing.  Everything else derives from it.  OK maybe not cement.  These remind me a little of Maggie [Latham] who disappeared from blogging last week to sort out the next phase of  her career.  Maggie you are missed.   All the best to you.

These are sketches from the computer screen-- a few of the snapshots I took while in California last month.  I love drawing outside from life, but this is the next best thing, and one can rip through a lot of trial compositions in short order.  I'm looking for natural compositions--the kind you can't make up--not necessarily trying to display any great drawing skill, just interesting composition--sort of an exercise of the eye and a training of the hand.

What happens to these I don't know.  Perhaps they will suggest an abstract approach,  maybe they will become nice sloppy luscious oil paintings--or mudpies, or nothing further.  For now they're just fun to play with in a sort of rapid-fire no mind way.

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Visual Decisions

Carla Jean,  6X9",  Mixed media with pen and ink

Hatching Indigo,  6X8",  Mixed media

I've been working on these 11 little panels, some of which I've shown in past postings.  They just keep changing as I meander through tests and experiments.  Some of them got very deep with all the layers, some of them failed as presentable pieces and await further layers.  These two completed themselves early on-- I can't touch them for the time being, at least until some flash of inspiration strikes to alter them.  The Carla Jean without the slab seemed too wanting, and the Hatching Indigo had no structure--a textural extravaganza with no point.  It's  amazing how a little thing like some hatch marks and a purple haze can order a whole painting around.

Well.  The old computer bit the dust.  Here it is in it's last gasp.  She was a fine old dinosaur, all 20 gigs.  She was replaced by that slim black thing to the left of the flat screen-- Dell 580S--a terabyte--50 times bigger.   It hasn't been a terrible nightmare, I had everything backed up well enough--just time consuming.  I think I'm back, sorry for not being very attentive in the last couple of weeks.  

  

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