Feral Art

                                

You never know when that inspiration will hit. Are you prepared?

I sleep with my favourite art supplies. There are always sketchbooks close by. I adore Neo-Colour water soluble crayons for their accessibility in their two level folding tin, and also because I can paint with them using a Japanese fountain pen brush. 

Sometimes I dream that I am making art. If I wake during such a dream, I have my tools right at hand to take advantage of that uncanny dream state. 

The painting above is of my service dog Vito. We were engaged in an energetic game of fetch. He got this frenzied look in his eyes, and a smile, and I knew I had to capture it. I continued the game of fetch as I pulled my art supplies closer, and set to work. The result was very different from a carefully controlled study using a photograph. It was spontaneous and full of bounce. Not anatomically correct, but it thoroughly portrayed the playful moment. 

This sort of work requires the ability to work quickly and without too much editorializing. If I stopped to analyze the work, I  would have lost the immediacy of the moment, the urgency of the movement.

Many of my book illustrations are painted from life and also from photographs. Well, Vito will sit and stay, but that was not what I was after. I could have taken video of our game, and selected a still shot from it, but I think that what I ultimately captured was a compilation of several moments. Draw, draw, throw the toy, draw, throw, paint, paint, throw, paint. It was all about movement and fun.

Yes, I sleep with my art supplies. I am a feral artist. I paint wildly. I forage for inspiration.  Coyote Dreams.

The Moment of Done.

I sit in my quiet studio, painting.

I am way beyond the thinking, planning, sketching, drawing stages. I am painting. I am in The Zone.

Time stands still. Pain is irrelevant here, although I know that later I will pay the price for this. Outside noises are hushed. Nothing exists here except for brushes, paint and water. I have no hands, I have no eyes,I have no thoughts. I am the brush, I am the paint, I am the water. These things are myself.

I paint. And at some point invention becomes revision. So I sit, revising and revising until...there it is. The Moment of Done.

It is a Mystery. It is beyond talent and training. This is the Gift. Understandng the map of my art. Knowing when to start and knowing when to stop.

Going Oldschool

Sometimes we get so caught up in our technology, it becomes a screen a barrier, something that stands between us and our creativity. We focus so much on the details of the technology that somehow the creative energy we had when we begins to dissipate. By the time that we have gotten the through all of the technical details, the creative impulse what we had the beginning goes away. We sit at the keyboard, our, fingers frozen in mid air.

This is not a rant against technology. Without technology you wouldn't be reading this at all. 

Sometimes, it is simply a matter of turning off the technology and going old school. Pencil, paper those antique tools of making our mark. Just as there is a thrill using new technology, there is also a thrill in the discovering the old technology. There is a certain visceral pleasure in the tactile and somewhat messy materials of  original art. 

I come away from my studio with hands that are stained with the materials of my art. I am physically marked as an art maker. 

I feel that we are living in a time of transition. And I am certainly happy to use technology to publish my work. I scan in Victorian lithographs, random newspaper clippings, and antique marbleized  papers. 

Modern technology can be a tool, or a trap.  May all your choices be creative ones.

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.