Trail of Drawings

Turned Away

2012-01-09T21:22:00.000-08:00

A nice sketch found in a recent perusal of the digital pile... I enjoy looking at drawings left alone for some time. Brings back good thoughts and inspirations.

Lately, the inclination to draw has almost tipped into action. I can sense it coming. Soon.

2010-05-31T22:52:00.000-07:00

One Another

A simple drawing about two people. Each person has distinct elements that relate to personality and character. They are individual, yet connected by simply occupying space together inside the rectangle. Adding background would provide time, and place, yet when I approach the paper with this focus I stop with the drawing because there is something important about this state. Putting words to it does not happen, nor would it do it justice. More searching is valuable to this endeavor, and in all likelihood I will discover an important element that I do not see within myself today.

The Longevity of Marlboro

2009-10-23T10:42:00.000-07:00

Marlboro Medium - with Blue, 1994

One of my favorite paintings from 1994-95. There are few things that I've created that stand the reckoning of experiential change, yet this one does.

I lived in Grand Forks, ND, at this time and walked each day from my apartment to the university art department to paint. Along the way, I collected many colorful things along sidewalks, in parking lots, and from park lawns. As I sorted through all of this treasure, it was clear that I was picking up more cigarette boxes than other items. Specifically, it was hard pack Marlboro Medium boxes people threw from their car window as they pulled their last smoke.

Heavily influenced by my liking for the Pop paintings of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, I blended together color, paint and the design from the Marlboro box creating a short series. I'm pleasantly surprised at the fresh stirrings this painting creates in me every time I return to my private museum (a.k.a - my parent's house).

Accident and Choice

2009-07-21T01:23:00.000-07:00

This work is a very rare piece from my studio. Rare in terms of its emphasis of the non-objective color field (I've only made two of these works; this one in my collection and the other in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Kray), and rare in terms of its final state.

This final state rarity is the source of my rambling today.

As I fumbled forward creating drawings and paintings like this one out of the sheer exploration of materials or a sensation, I would come to points of understanding and completion in the creative process. Most of the time after considering the completeness I found in the work, I pressed forward hoping to find an even more exciting solution by playing with the materials some more. By pressing forward, I new I was challenging what I had gained in the drawing, but going for something more exciting is what the exploration is about. I would gain more potential some of the time, but most of the time I destroyed the potential. Happening even far fewer times during these creative runs, I would tuck the work away when I reached one of those moments of completeness, and return to it weeks, sometimes months, and ever so rarely, even years later bring a new energy to it.

This work is one that I tucked away. I remember building the potential in this drawing over a week layering pastels and light washes of acrylic paint onto the Rives BFK paper. On top of the pastel and paint, I sprayed the entire surface with cheap white spray paint muting and mixing the colors. Another bonus of this is that the pastel would soak up the spray paint creating a sand grain surface that would hold more pastel and acrylic over the previous layers creating a richer color combination and depth. After repeating these steps a number of times, I tucked this drawing away feeling content with the green-cloud field on the paper, but not fully satisfied how to bring other organic elements to it without these elements looking drawn and constructed.

For over eight years, this work traveled with me in a bundle of drawings that I would occasionally unroll to contemplate, and eventually re-roll and place back in storage. In my latest unrolling of these works though, I was surprised to find that these drawings had changed -- and not my by own hand!

My latest storage has been a garage with cement floors that were the lowest point on the landscape, and all the rain runoff from the nearby roofs and lawn would pool on the garage floor. My large drawings stood rolled up on end like columns on the garage floor and, needless to say, when the rain came these paper columns sucked up some of that rain water giving this drawing some unique stains that have brought new and very satisfying dynamics to this work.

Thanks Marcel Duchamp.

2009-07-12T23:06:00.000-07:00

Here's another older work from my days in Tennessee. I enjoyed the subject of vessels, and since I was at a place where people made lots of pottery, I was able to use plenty of pottery for reference.

The ghostly image of the second pot is still invigorating to me. Definitely enjoyed expressionistic application of tone to paper here, huh. I can remember my feelings and thoughts when I made this work, but today I couldn't make this work with all that expression. Interesting how I've changed.

Some drawings from a long time ago ...

2009-05-16T12:36:00.000-07:00

As I've been rummaging through my files getting other things in order, I found works I created over ten years ago. Vessels were an important subject for me at that time, and envelopes were one image I used. cwtmp8vark

I enjoyed vigorous drawing and was very liberal with my application of charcoal and pastel. Rubbing, smearing, erasing, and reapplying the charcoal and pastel was fun and allowed me to keep the work looking fresh.

Even with acrylic paint, rubbing, scraping, and using my fingers were important for keeping the surface fresh and exciting.

These are two works that I wish I still had. I gifted the red envelope drawing to the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts at the end of my residency with them. I remember it being carefully tucked away into their collection unit, and the gallery director saying I'd receive a letter of acceptance within a week, but ... I found out two weeks later that the gallery director and her husband had been caught for fraud. The gallery director disappeared from the school, and so did my drawing. (Correction: I've heard from friends of mine who recently visited Arrowmont, that this drawing is framed and hanging in the lobby where they are displaying work by previous residence artists, 7/12/09).

The acrylic painting was taken off the stretcher bars and mailed to a collector for a minimal sum of money.

A Blast from the Past

2008-11-30T01:23:00.000-08:00

Here's a drawing I created over ten years ago. Exploring the foreground/background shift of black on white and making a fun drawing with a nod to Jim Dine's tool drawings from the 1970s. This is one where I stopped before the image became too muddled; ie. the floating, non-descript space is suggestive, not completely illustrative, the unfinished quality in the flashlight is quite powerful, and that light is what makes the drawing (the pictorial space) come alive.

It's also a sign of a younger me and is not a resolution I'd work towards today. Particularly, the black marks along side the rectangles are not what I would do now. They do not describe any form, but rather are a floating cloud of black ... they resemble ink stains ... and become a distraction because we look at them expecting a positive form. Those marks are confusing and distract people from 'getting' the image right away.

Anyway, the drawing is fun and has much of my youthful charm in it. As usual, hindsight is always better.

Loving What One Does

2008-11-19T23:49:00.000-08:00

Last night, I shook hands with Iain McCaig. Yeah, I know ... what a moment. He's a genuinely great guy, and he carried that through his presentation of his latest book "Shadowline" at the Academy of Art. WOW! It's a magical book; not only for the wonderful illustrations included, but because McCaig has revealed his honest, personal self through the fictional story he's woven onto the pages.

He met the audience as his equals as he began speaking about a sharpie that he recently fished out of the toilet. (It would be the same sharpie to sign books after the presentation.) He talked openly about his career as a children's book illustrator, his preproduction work in the movie industry, his latest writing adventure and his most recent adventure at Pixar working on the concept design for John Carter from Mars.

I walked out of there far less star struck than I was before meeting him. (That's a good thing.) His ease, humor and genuine goodness were refreshing. What I found most compelling though, was his intensity of love and passion for getting the most out of an image to tell his story. That's the real gem.

His website is coming soon!

For future reference:

iainmccaig.com

Inspiration from a great artist

2008-09-07T00:32:00.000-07:00

Drawings by Barbara Bradley

I just wanted to share this with you as I've mentioned this in previous posts about figure drawing. Here are a few drawings by Barbara Bradley that were posted in Bradley Hall at the Academy of Art. Seeing her original drawings, in person was both enlightening and humbling. She created them with such deftness of touch, vigor, and understanding and it is inspiring.

Oh Lonesome One

2008-09-03T23:34:00.001-07:00

This one was created for a client as a gift for her daughter. This pose is a combination of a few poses and facial expressions by the puppy after she unsuccessfully attempted to untether herself to explore my studio.

Looking Closely

2008-05-21T11:23:00.000-07:00

Here's another drawing from a recent Clothed Figure Drawing class. This one took about 20 minutes. Over the past fifteen weeks, my seeing and interpretation skills have grown tremendously. I'm pleased with many of the drawings I've made from life models, but I'm also aware of how much further I want to go. Just a few weeks ago, I saw many sketches by the late Barbara Bradley who was a master at interpreting from life, and I'm just crawling compared to the running she was doing.

Recent Five Minute Drawing

2008-03-14T23:05:00.001-07:00

I created this drawing in a Clothed Figure class at the Academy of Art in San Francisco (Spring 2008). The instructor for this class is Mr. Chuck Pyle, and judging from the difference between life drawings I made just a year ago, my observation skills and understanding of line efficiency is more clear. Life drawing continues to be an everlasting pursuit. Under Mr. Pyles tutelage, I'm discovering a vein of artists that I've shunned because of my fascination with contemporary art, and I'm incredibly pleased to find them now. These are artists such as Dean Cornwell, Andrew Loomis, Robert Fawcett, and Lyendecker.

Big Man, Skinny Dog

2008-02-25T20:25:00.000-08:00

Here's a study of a walk cycle with moving background and overlay. It's in ruff form here to get the basic movement working. Suggestions are welcome.

Specs:

Man walks on 12.

Dog walk on 8.

BG moves three inches/sec.

Overlay moves six inches/sec.

Shaman

2008-01-19T22:30:00.000-08:00