A few drawings made quick

Not everything has to be a "project" that takes days n' days or weeks 'n months...I love doing drawings that happen in one sitting, these are quick studies that happened in a sitting...a splash here, a dash there...done...sometimes it's just a color that sets me going, sometimes it's the paper, the texture, the shape, or something about that pencil...whatever hits me at the time, I go with it...

Inspiration and the things that I have no words for

I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me -- shapes and ideas so near to me -- so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught...I found I could say things with colors that I couldn't say in any other way -- things that I had no words for.

Georgia O'Keeffe

I have to attribute what I've done these past few years to these words of Georgia O'Keeffe...some time ago...oh, I think around 1990, I went back to making art after not making art for a bit of time...I never really stopped, but I wasn't getting anywhere seriously with it. I wasn't really looking and seeing anything that I wanted to see...I spent a lot of time copying pictures from photos that I took or copying something someone else wanted me to do (I did several portraits of pets, mostly cats). I bought the book Georgia O'Keeffe: Art and Letters at a bookshop during a Sunday afternoon prowl with my Fred and proceeded to read it cover to cover and felt that special "tug" toward inspiration...well, that was around 1992 or so...it has been a lot of years of sloping various paint forms, making piles of pastel dust, and several volumes of sketchbooks full of inspiration before I came to these two little drawings using colors and textures, shapes and lines that I never knew how to translate from my mind to paper...until now. (I also took a couple of years off from making pictures to write my first three novels.) These things take time and patience...I've studied both...and I'm still learning what to do with what I have...

Georgia O'Keeffe: Art and Letters by Georgia O'Keeffe

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I found this book during a Sunday afternoon bookstore prowl in the early 1990's, probably around 1992 or so...I read it cover to cover and found my way back to making art the way I wanted to make art, but I had to go through a lot of paper and canvas, paint and pencils before I really got to the core of what I wanted to make...it's a fascinating read and powerful, especially for the artist...


View all my reviews.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Small drawings

This little winter watercolor that I made in 1999 fits well with the type of day we're having...it's a pretty one...winter...as much as I complain about the being cold and gray part, there's a special quality that I would miss if I didn't have it in my life...



Winter mornings especially...






and nights...









watercolors done on scraps...
I love making small drawings and paintings, I keep a small sketchbook with me all the time, it's no bigger than 4 x 4 and its been filled with small pictures that I diddle about with while waiting for a ride or waiting in a doctor's office waiting room...it's the waiting book...I've had a few such books over the years...I have an archival Solander box full of sketchbooks that I've carried since the early 90's when I finally got back into drawing religiously...especially after 1995 when I moved out to the country and could see the sky again...



This little drawing Something I Saw is about 2 x 2 in size, just a wee bit of a thing...I love it.















And this little drawing Season's Change is about the transition month of November...it's a bit of a beast...I tend to have dragons in my drawings...and the last storm that blew through certainly had the look of a dragon...

Although the large drawings give me room to sprawl and make a mess...but it's these little ones that make me happiest...they're more concise...yes, I like the character of the little ones...they seem more special, more immediate...

Can you imagine an entire exhibition of tiny drawings and paintings?

November Twilight

November Twilight is a mixed media mess...but I love it better now than I did the day before I finished it...it was one of those drawings that wasn't working, until I got to the "oh fuck it" point and threw everything and the kitchen sink at it...

It started with a black acrylic background with heavily textured brushstrokes, then I began scribbling and scrubbing the surface with Derwent Soft Drawing Pencils, their muted earthy tones were the perfect colors that I wanted, after awhile I got into trouble as the color wasn't laying down so well...then after a week of glaring at it for being so disappointing, I got out the big guns, the mop brush, and watercolors, then I opened my jars of acrylic washes and splashed...for most of the creation of the piece, the two circles had been at the top, when I flipped it "upside-down" I liked it better...although it wasn't what I was going for to begin with...it turned into something I wasn't expecting...sometimes, part of the struggle is the fun part...