Pipe envy

Will Purdy and Mikhail Revyagin pipes, 11 9/16 x 8 1/4, watercolor pencils

Tuesday night

Venting savage feelings on non archival non art wide spaced lined cheap notepad paper. I thought it would calm me but not tonight. In the interest of some pretense of decorum, we'll just leave it at that and I won't type in all the pathetic invective that wants to blast out of me, nor offer anything more than these colored scratches.

11 x 8 1/2, Prismacolors

Procrastinating

Another thumbnail sketch of Ronny's pipe, 8 1/2 x 5 1/2, Prismacolor pencil

The actual pipe, photographed for those of you who are itching to see what it really looks like.

Update on Friday, September 23, 2011 at 6:46PM by Scott A. Stultz

I wrote a long, much too personal post about procrastination to go along with the sketch on the hardwood supplier's green memo pad late last night, then quickly removed it early this morning, I hope before anyone read it. I don't mind dosing myself with a little humility now and then, but I think that it is bad manners and poor form to merely spill one's guts on a blog and to pass it off as writing. Some rants are best heard only by the mute walls of the studio.

What I half jokingly refer to as procrastination, in this case putting off getting to the main event with a spirited drawing of Ronny's lovely pipe, is intended to charge the final piece that I'll send to Sweden with energy that it might not have if I do the drawing too soon. Of course, it also raises expectations, but I'm not going to shy away from that. The CORPS (Conclave of Richmond Pipe Smokers) annual expo is in two weeks, and I've set that as my deadline. In my immediate focus, though, is the cold bottle of ale that I want to reward myself with at the end of this rather trying week. So on now to relaxing on a rainy Friday evening.

Stagefright

A few weeks ago, the Swedish pipe carver Ronny Thunér contacted me and asked if I'd consider doing a drawing of one of his pipes in exchange for the pipe itself. He confessed to being an admirer of the work I've been posting on this blog and on facebook, and that he'd wanted one since he began seeing them earlier this summer. I'd heard of him but was not familiar with his work, so I was completely unprepared for his extraordinary story, which I found posted on Pipedia. It told of a childhood filled with inexplicable rage, and behavior that scooped out the guts of his early adulthood, landing him in jail and nearly costing him his life before he was diagnosed with serious ADHD. Ultimately, he was rescued from his torture by a the work of a dedicated clinician, but more so by his discovery of his gift for making pipes. Reading it wrung me out emotionally. Although my own story is very different, I identified with Ronny and felt we had an immediate and strong connection. I accepted his request.

Well, the pipe arrived from Sweden on my front steps with yesterday's mail. I brought it up to the studio and tore open the padded envelope, cutting through layers of tape and bubble wrap with a utility knife, and brought out a small, gorgeous gem of a smooth finished briar. It about took my breath away, turning it in my hands in the filtered light from the studio's stained glass windows. And now it's performance time. It's one thing to draw whatever I please, but entirely another to draw a commissioned piece, and this is a big deal because Ronny's story so moved me. So I'm starting out with a few quick sketches to really get a feel for the piece before I do a final drawing to send to him. This one shows it sitting on the torn shipping envelope it came in. It seems silly, because I've been drawing for so many years, but I have a touch of stage fright. I'm performing for a very special fellow artist.

compositional sketch, 8 x 5, Prismacolor pencilsAnother getting acquainted compositional sketch. 

2B graphite and Prismacolors

Nightfall

I just dashed this off on the first page in my brand new expensive friggin' Moleskine sketchbook, out on the brick patio listening to the crickets sing as night rushed on, faster than it has in months. I could say that it's messy and wild because it was getting so dark so quickly, but you know what?-it fits my mood. The delicious descending panic of a chilly night displacing a cool, benevolent afternoon of outdoor house maintenance on a high ladder, a hastily thrown together sauce of late summer tomatoes and the last shreds of basil over spaghetti for dinner, winding down quietly for the evening with a pipe and a beer but it isn't really quiet at all inside of this aging, aching body still high on the thrall of a gorgeous crisp September Sunday, is it?

talbert LB and P Becker strawberrywood with Smuttynose Robust Porter, 8 1/4 x 11 9/16, Derwent Watercolor pencilsLate at night and too restless to go to bed. A change of pace with a more tightly rendered study of my smoking stand clutter, just to prove to myself that I can still almost do a careful drawing if I'm in the mood.

radice twin bore freehand with pipe cleaners etc, 6 1/2 x 7 1/2, 2B graphite and watercolor pencils