Taking Stock

 

Looking at the big picture.

 

In art, whether in story or on canvas, one generally starts with an idea, then sketches, develops and completes, although it’s rarely a straight line in effort or in time. Typically there are periods for taking stock and testing the direction your creation is taking, when you go a distance away and look back with your eyes squinted, or you turn your story pages face down and go away for a day, a week, a month. Upon returning with a fresh perspective, you can decide to continue, gesso over what you’ve done, or save the parts to use in something else. You might also decide to go and sell shoes instead, I suppose, but if you make art, you probably won’t do that.  You have to make art, like Salmon must swim upstream. That might not be the prettiest analogy, considering what happens to the Salmon at the end of the journey, but it does make my point.

I have several art projects in the works, not the least among them, my blogs. It has been a spring full of travel, broken bones (now fairly well healed), and good intentions that have been interrupted by life, all in a good way. Projects have languished, as has the spring clean-up of the yard, because of all the above, and rain, rain and more rain.

Spring clean-up tools.

Three days ago I could not put the weeding off any longer.  It was the fifth of May, and it is my rule to be finished with spring yard work by June 1.  This is not an arbitrary rule. On June first, the mosquitos are more than I can stand. I’m a magnet. So, I went out in the rain with the Move n’ Groove, the clippers and the weed digger, and lost myself in the job.

Next best thing to a mountain stream.

It was cool. Of course it was, it was raining! The ditch in the front yard, which usually gives me fits because all the new construction on our street has increased run-off and makes it flood, was gurgling like a mountain stream, providing music as good as any sung by Willie, Lucinda or Etta. There was nothing in my world for a little while except the sound of flowing water, the satisfying removal of chickweed and violets, and my mind refreshing itself, taking stock. It was a productive time, part meditation, part therapy.

Weed be gone.

I have been mulling over my blogs, and as I weeded, I picked up on the thought about what I was writing, and  where I was going with them.

Last October I held the opinion that blogs are a fad written by people who have nothing important to say, and read by probably no one. Everyone writing, no one reading! Last October I received two emails from people I slightly knew that contained links to their blogs. One was on photography, the other on art. I read and enjoyed them, noted that both were written using WordPress, checked out WordPress, set-up an account (I LOVE the computer!), and wrote a blog entry.  I couldn’t say how that happened.  It just did.

My first post was personal, a sweet remembrance of a tender moment between my daughter and grandson, and a tribute to my mother, whose birthday was coming up. My grandson loved it because it had a picture of him.  My mother was very touched.  Then I posted a story about Halloween that contained pictures of every costume ever worn by my grandsons, which was not too hard as they are only  five, two and two.  They loved it and wanted me to pull it up and read it to them whenever they came to my house. I was hooked as a blogger. What I was writing wasn’t important to many, but in my world it was a success.

My next effort was an art post about blind contour drawing. It’s a good thing I liked the result, as my family wasn’t interested in the slightest, and I was my only reader. I posted a link to it on my Facebook page, and started to get some responses from people who were interested in blind contour drawing. That sounds crazy, even to me! It was clear I had two distinct audiences. My solution was to create a second blog. One would be for family, one would be for art and photography. The problem since then has been, in addition to it being a little stressful trying to keep up with two blogs, that often the two subjects are the same.  

My mind played with my blog issues, helping me take stock of the situation, and I came to some conclusions.

I’m going to return to making one blog. Art and photography are intertwined throughout my life, in what I choose to do, and how I see the world and people in it. It never worked, and it never will work, to try to separate them. I learned this from writing a blog. I have changed from thinking of myself as a person who sometimes makes art, and sometimes takes photos, and the rest of the time does the important stuff, to realizing that the art I make and the photos I take speak for who I am.  I have always filtered everything through these two mediums in order to answer for myself the big question of what is my place in the world, but I didn’t realize it until I tried to compartmentalize them into a blog that separated them from the rest of my life.

I also learned that even if everyone is writing, and no one is reading, there is a great benefit in blogging. I know mine showed me some important things when I stepped back and squinted my eyes for the bigger picture.

Making art with your eyes closed

So Handsome

We all know what happens if you don’t warm up muscles that are going to do hard work. They become stiff, and give you a lot of back-talk about not wanting to do what you’re asking of them. Next thing you know they are weak and flabby from disuse because exercise is just tooooo hard. What a difference with a little warm-up routine. Those same muscles are ready for lift-off, begging for a four minute mile and an extra 20 pounds on the leg press.

It’s the same with the brain before you start to draw or paint. Without a warm-up there will be awkward lines, muddy colors, proportions out of control, values heading over the cliff, and the left brain singing a little song about how you never could draw, and here is just another example.

So, here’s a warm-up for art exercise called blind contour drawing. Take a piece of paper and a pen, (a flair tip works well), put an object in front of you (your hand is always handy, ha ha), and without looking at the paper, begin to draw.  Relax and go very slowly, paying attention to and drawing every detail. Do not look at the paper, and do not lift the pen until you have completed the drawing. Relax, relax.  Don’t get ahead of the point where you’re drawing, and don’t worry about what is happening on that paper where you are positively not peeking!  Nothing should be happening in your brain except the impulse that is going to the hand that is drawing what the eye is seeing.  You will be surprised at the result.   Even if it’s unrecognizable, it will have some charm and strength to it, and you’ll think if you can do that without even looking, then the sky is the limit. Your right brain is ready for the hard work, and your left brain is speechless, which is precisely what you want. 

I’ve posted the very first blind contour drawing I did, showing, at least, that I have a sense of humor.  It’s my hand, and while it looks like it could use a good physical therapist, or maybe even a surgeon, I still remember that after doing a few drawings like it, I could sense that my hand, eye and brain were being nicer to each other and were ready to get to work.

If you want additional stretching after the blind contour warm-up, progress to modified contour drawings where you look at your paper every ten or twenty seconds while you are working. Some of the drawings will look good with color or shadows added, but it’s surprising how finished and fresh most of them look without anything else.  Betty Edwards, “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain,” has much more to say on this subject.