A touch of purple

Sometimes it's just a touch of color that I want to tip a drawing toward something special...something dear to my heart...but no one else's. This was one of those drawings that blackly rambled without direction until the purple touched off a spark, like a stained glass window, and then I smeared in with a Chinese white colored pencil to make some of the black lines recede into the background...I love the motion of this drawing, it rambles and swirls, ripples and flows...natural chaos...

Sometimes I have a hard time deciding which way is up, usually I settle for how it sat in my lap or which side I worked from the most, but I worked from all directions so for now I like it this way, but I also enjoy looking at it upside down...and from either side...

1 - 2 - 3 - 4...

Must it be? It must be!

The Beethoven String Quartet in F (Opus 135) cries out Must it be? It must be! (Muss es sein? Es muss sein!) in the last movement, the portentous question is replied with an exultant answer...this drawing is my bit of personal inquiry while searching for answers...but mine is less confident than Beethoven's query, this quartet written near the end of his life gives off a sense of being content, cheerful, and "above the fray" after a stormy life filled with frustrations and stress, there was no conflict, just peace.























I crumpled the paper specifically for this piece...a representation of my personal stress, and then initiated peace into it by using the wrinkles, tears, and creases as media along with my pencils, the result satisfies me in a curious way...I adore this piece...

This pair on green paper, continues the process (I love the color), the result remains interesting. I'm looking to make more, only I want to be more bold with the "destruction" of the paper surface...possibly gouging, making tears, holes, and losses, uneven edges, creating fragments to piece together, like a puzzle...or like the pieces of crumbled stones that I find in the yard with fossils impressed into their surface, I like piecing them together, opening the layers to look at the remains...just having fun...

Lumina

This was a drawing I almost gave up on, but pushed it a little bit further figuring, what the hell, I had nothing to lose doing more to it, could it get worse, well, yes it could have, but it didn't...every time I look at it now I'm glad that I did it.

On a Cold Day in July

Forgive the lack of cropping, but why not show the messy parts along with the best...I had sooooo much fun making this little one, I just scanned her this morning and I'm dressing her up in a mat and frame for an exhibition in downtown Syracuse at the Syracuse Technology Garden! This is watercolor, pencil, colored pencil, and salt on Rising Stonehenge paper, it's approximately 8 x 8 in size, just a little one, but it's gorgeous in a big way.

Night Haze

That's what I wrote in the margin when I first finished the drawing, but lately I've been calling it "Dreams on a New Moon Night."

I fooled about with the new point of the pencil on this one, some of the new pencils come from the store with these nifty ridges on the point, I love to roll them on the paper to take advantage of the texture they make until they're worn off and I have to sharpen it...

Pastoral Window

The first day of July actually feels like the first day of September, it's chilly enough to put a fire in the woodstove.

This drawing is a patchwork of mediums, the "window" is a square of white acrylic paint, that fantastic burgundy color is the Derwent Graphitint "Port" pencil after adding water, then additional dry sketching with more tinted graphite pencils , colored pencils, and regular pencil (hard and soft) enhanced the natural flow of the water drenched pigment.

A lovely bit of work.

Rise

Wow. Another inspiration from just a graphite dust smear, my sketchbook is loaded with so much productivity, it's been real fun going with the flow of creativity. I worked with dust, hard leads scratching the surface, and soft leads to "etch" the lines that the hard leads made, create deep shadows, and then lifting soft textures with a kneaded eraser...

The heart of everything that is...

I counted how many drawings I've made since my show at the Delavan in November and it seems I've made ninety new things...I've been busy...this little drawing is one of them...

I've been playing around with soft pencils, 9B and 8B mostly, I'm in love with their squishy texture, and the dust...you see, I've bought wood less pencils so I keep the shavings from the sharpener in a small tub, dip in and smear it around...oh, yes, I'm having way too much fun with it. These aren't as detailed as my others, the harder pencils are best for that...

I also bought a very small sketch book (about 4 x 4) back in April, I'm filling that up with more random marks...for a while there I was doing a drawing a day, but life often gets in the way of that sort of pace...so I've slowed it down a little bit and just go with the flow...

Celestial Spring

This is a mixed media, watercolor, pencil, water-soluble graphite shavings, pastel shavings, and color pencil...I think that's everything...lots of splashing, lots of color, and lots of thought...I have looked the spots off it today, I'm thinking it might be done...

Rites of Spring

This little drawing goes well with this "melty" day...the birds at my feeder have started to make their spring time songs in spite of the three feet of snow drifted around our yard. My dog Max is shedding his winter coat, he leaves tufts of black fuzz on everything, even on the snow. There is a change in the light, the feel in the air, the day is as changeable as the texture of this drawing.