Rearranging the Crayons

Rearranging the crayons is what I do when I am seeking the Zone. I refill my palette, I clean all my brushes, I fondle the lovely tools of my trade. The simple act of touching my tools prepares me to be open to my creativity. My fingers remember making art, and that tactile memory triggers the creative process.

Have you ever rearranged your palette? Having the colors in the right places can be important, but sometimes we get stuck because we see the colors in the same old places, rubbing shoulders with the same old friends. Randomizing your palette can make you see new color families.

Some artists limit their palettes to three or four colors. This is usually based on color theory. What if you created your own new theory? I once did an impromptu portrait using three Crayola crayons in a restaurant which used brown wrapping paper as tablecloths, and which had crayons on the table for the use of children to draw while waiting for their meal. Well, I am a child, so I took the three crayons, and began to draw. But they were not colors which I would normally choose to make a portrait. They were scarlet red, violet purple and inchworm green. As I drew, something changed in my brain.

It was amazing. I did things in that drawing that I had never done before. And when I was finished, the portrait was possibly the most accurate capture of another person which I had ever achieved. Fortunately, it was the waitress, who comped my meal in exchange for her portrait. But that day I received something better than a free dinner...I turned on a part of my brain which has served me well ever since. Here's to rearranging the crayons!

Finding Mystery

Sometimes all it takes is picking up a tool. Sometimes the tool makes the decisions for you.

How does the magic happen? I have to tell you...I don't know. It is a mystery. The raw ability, the talent, is nothing without technique, and technique without talent is also nothing.

Much though I may rave about fIndng the right tools and materials, I must also admit that sometimes the art pours out of my hands.  I go away somewhere, to a place outside of time and space, and I disappear.  Somehow a connection is made between memories, perceptions, emotions, thoughts....my hands know what to do and they do it.

I downloaded an Android app called Magic Doodle, which allows me to draw with my fingers on my phone and tablet. I can paint with color and line. But that is not what I love about this app. Magic Doodle replays the sequence of my drawing in a video, so I can watch HOW I drew the image. And it amazes me...the choices which I make are displayed line by line. And you know what I find when I watch t1he video? I have absolutely NO idea how I do it. 

Art is a mystery. 

Maps, directions and the road ahead!

Imagine you are on a journey. Imagine that your journey has an itinerary. Imagine that you have a set schedule of places to go and things to do.

Now imagine that the journey on which you are about to embark is a creative path into the unknown.

Arm yourself with your favorite tools and materials. Keep them close to hand so you can chronicle your journey at every turn.

What does a creative journey look like? It looks like you with your tools and materials close to hand, and your eyes wide open. Release all your expectations and preconceived notions of what the outcome will be. Surrender yourself to the moment.

I am embarking on just such a journey tomorrow. I will keep a new sketchbook for just this purpose. I will take time to write, to draw, to paint, to decorate the pages and celebrate the process of the sketch journal.

Those of you who know me know that I do this frequently. But this particular sketchbook will be very directed and focused on the next four weeks of my life. I will devote my energy to this focused process.

Join me...The Sketchbook Project is a bite-sized, open ended international project which sends you a sketchbook which, after you complete it, you mail back and it will be exhibited around the world. There are many themes from which to choose, or they will select a random theme for you. Here's the website:
http://www.arthousecoop.com/projects/sketchbookproject

It can be as complicated or as simple as you like, your only constraints are the dimensions of the book, and the bar code identification label on the back.

I am going to make a hand bound book with handmade paper, and chronicle my journey back in time at Pennsic, which is the largest event of the Society for Creative Anachronism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsic_War.

Life is an interesting adventure. I am going to be led by my muses for the next four weeks. Come join me on my journey!

Escape Velocity

Some days, the simple effort it takes to cross the studio to my desk seems overwhelming. Other days, I fly.

What is it that allows my creative self to take flight and soar?

I try to keep a journal...random sketches and paintings, not huge masterpieces, just small visual notes of moments in time. I steal a few minutes while waiting for the watiress to bring my meal, I pull off to the side of the road near a river, I grab my paintbox and journal when I see that "certain slant of light". And so page by page I have a chronicle of what inspires me.

Sketchbooks can be intimidating or liberating. Long ago I surrendered my need to complete annual tasks, like New Year's Resolutions or daily journals. I admire people who can keep day by day every day journals. I cannot. So now I simply open the books ( yes, I keep several journals. One for paintings of rivers, one for paintings of light, one for paintings of places, one for flowers, one for sunsets, well, you get the idea.). I open them when I can. I make time, take time, for this creative act. I make the doing of art a sacred task. I make it a mundane task.I do it.

When I look back through a sketchbook, I can see the map of my creative self. Here a turning to the spontaneous, there an exploration of the new palette. One page is all about control, another is all about not having control. My work veers and detours, it meanders through the creative choices like a drunken butterfly.

Don't measure your work by anyone's work. You are unique. And in that state of being unique, you are not alone. We are all unique. Each of us has been formed, informed, by our experiences. The places where our experiences overlap is where we meet, and there compare our unique journeys. We are all different, we are all the same.

Where's that new paintbrush? I must capture this texture, right now.

Running with Scissors

Sometimes it is so quiet in the studio that I swear I can hear the paper rustling in the files.

Sometimes it is so busy that it looks like the aftermath of a tornado. (and having lived through a tornado and seen the aftermath, I know whereof I speak.)

I always carry with me notes on my current projects. I always travel with art supplies. You never know when you will need them. And I want to be ready when a new idea strikes me.

Isn't that an interesting thing...an idea hits, or strikes. Like a bolt out of the blue.

Art can be a dangerous thing.

I fret sometimes when I don't have enough energy or time to work on a project which is calling out to me. But I suspect a worse danger would be to ignore the call of inspiration, because there may come a time when I can't hear the call if I keep on ignoring it.

Artists have always lived on the edge. The Garret of Starvation is real.  It  is Hunger which drives us to create, a lust more powerful than procreation.

Run with the scissors. Live on the edge. Be the Artist. It's gonna be okay.

Waiting for Spring

The crocus is usually the first flower of spring where I live. Small, unassuming, low to the ground, hardy, and on the first warm day, vibrant. All the promise of summer is held on these tiny flowers.

Sometimes a sketch is like a crocus. It may be something you dashed off on the back of a napkin, or doodled in the margins on a newspaper, or even fingered in the condensation on the window while waiting for the light to change. It may not seem like much, but somehow you just know it is important. There is something in it...a line, a place where two lines intersect, a shading, a shape, something that is in your personal shorthand which only you can read.

I have a special box where I keep these important sketches. I write notes about them...where I was, what I was doing, time, how I came to draw it. And most importantly, what I think it might be useful for in the future.

When I embark on a major project, I line the walls of my studio with these notes and the sketches. I make sketches of sketches. I elaborate, I simplify. I expand, I condense.

And in the end, if I am reallllly lucky, the finished product will have the initial enthusiasm and joy of the sketch. Because the sketch, is, after all, like the crocus, the promise of good things to come.

In Pursuit of the Perfect Paintbrush

You know it exists. You've seen ads for it in magazines. You may even own one or two yourself. But now upon embarking on a new journey of creativity, you, for reasons which are never quite clear, have lost the all important tool without which the whole project comes to a complete standstill.

What makes us obsessively cling to our tools as if they alone created the artwork? Why do we allow them to have such power over us?

"I cannot possibly paint with out that particular paintbrush." 
"This is the only paper I use, none other will do."
"If I can't use those pencils, it just won't happen."


One of the most liberating exercises from art school was when we had to bring in our favorite pens, then leave them in our bags. Instead of pens, we had to draw a realistic drawing, from a live model, using a piece of string, a thing with no fine point and no stiffness or control whatsoever. It dripped, it flopped, it blobbed and rolled across the paper. After fighting with it for an hour or so, suddenly I gave in, and allowed the tool to be what it was, which was certainly not a pen. I began to explore the innate nature of the string, and allowed it to be a string full of ink and I began to draw, really draw, with a lovely freedom of expression because I no longer had preconceived expectations from my tool. I let the tool be itself, and somehow that released my inner artist.

Now, I am not saying to discard your favorite pen, or to chuck your best paints out the window. Tools and materials are very important, and you should always use the best you can possibly afford. The reason for this is that you don't want to spend all your time struggling with crappy tools and materials. But the lesson of the string taught me to allow the tool to be what it is, and simply that.

Yesterday I was painting as I waited for my meal in a restaurant. The lighting was dim, but there was just enough for me to draw and paint by. But the table was small, and so I had barely enough room for my little box of paints and my tiny "Here's where I ate today" sketchbook. So I had to grab the first drawing pen I could, rather than reach in and fossick about for the my favorite one. This pen was on its last bit of ink, sometimes scratchy, sometimes very faint, sometimes dark. I had to accommodate myself to this very rebellious pen. After a few moments of struggle, I started to understand the nature of this almost dead pen. I used the faint lines and the scratchiness and the sudden darkness with skill, trusting that my inner artist, who can draw people with ink laden bits of string, knew how to get the best effects from a faulty pen.

Yes, pursue the best paintbrush. But if, when inspiration and opportunity coincide, do not halt the process looking for it. Just grab any old bit of string and be the best artist you can be!