I don't ever know what I'm going to produce when I have a fresh sheet of paper in front of me. If I try to plan very much, I get overwhelmed, or I lose interest. I just start and let my engagement with a subject or a scene take me on an emotional outing, evocative of mood. Sometimes I'm calm and focused and do careful studies, sometimes I'm distracted and impatient, sometimes I'm riled and just slash away. I don't want to make pretty pictures, but I do get swept up in the beauty of whatever has my attention. Or I might just want to vent. Or prove something to myself. Or not. There's no consistency to it and I can't predict where I'll find myself. It's never the same trip. It seems to matter a lot to me to share what I'm seeing and how it makes me feel. To convey an experience. But more than that I just feel compelled to do this, to draw and paint. It takes me outside of myself. It's very different from the design I do for a living, which I also feel a need to do. But it's not really separate - I don't view myself as having a vocation and an avocation. I think about it all the time. I've wasted plenty of time and energy pondering and not doing. So I'm trying to think less and just do more. I'd like to make time to do larger scale work, more sustained and developed at greater depth. But in the meantime, maybe it's enough to fit what I can do into each day.
wednesday morning, may 20, 2020
Tuesday evening, May 19, 2020
Monday evening, May 18, 2020
Monday afternoon, May 18, 2020