During the last three months, I've forced myself through pages of drawing exercises with far more discipline than I really have the patience for. I've gritted my teeth and worked when I haven't felt like it at all, pushing myself through a self imposed refresher course in eye-hand co-ordination, trying to ignore my screaming mind just wanting to let out waves of rage, knowing that only by burning in this tedious training would I be able to recapture the ability to draw convincingly without thinking, automatically, and really fast. I like the extremes. Swinging between them, often unpredictably and painfully, brings me a savage pleasure that I'm so driven to seek. Most of the time, I don't want to do neat, anal retentive, careful pictures that look mesmerizingly, photographically real. I want to do unruly, messy, shouting to the sky rapturous work. What I've begun to see is that the excruciating practice that makes me want to break things and that so wears me out from the effort of restraint is translating into skills that can withstand all that emotion. Letting go without the skills produces unintelligible results. Sound and fury without meaning. Letting go with the skills deeply developed opens the possibility of sharing passion. Maybe even the possibility of creating art.
Talbert bulldog and friends with a bottle of Smuttynose Shoals Pale Ale on my smoking stand, 8 1/4 x 11 9/16, Mars 8B Lumograph and watercolor pencils
