drawing – Page 2 – Mixy's Art Blog

38 in 52

I’ll let the pictures tell the story for this week.

Fueled by Doubt 36/52

I look at them in their lives and their worlds, they do their things and they live their days.

I can do that. Look – watch me – I’m doing my things and living my days.

And then I turn sideways, and vanish.

Where did I go? All the fear folded in on me.

It all looked too big, I left. It’s all too familiar, so I run. .I hide from being me.

How am I not like the other people? Reasons crumple under their own weight and all the ideas dissolve into dust

Who thought the simple act of being me would become such a challenge, such a confusion, so fueled by doubt.

When this happens a lot I wonder if I should stop pretending.

Pretending the other people are real, or pretending I am.

I wonder at these words and fragments, at what will come next.

Most people will understand,

But most people aren’t real. Most people don’t exist.

Courage, Faith, Trust. 33/52

Scribbled things. Filled in with nonsense and part heard words

Dabs, daubs, splosh. Dragged, drawn out, drawn on.

And more, and further. Anemones? meteors? Some frenzied chaos. (I honestly don’t know.)

But as usual, I like the details best of all

The title for this week – Courage, Faith, Trust – came from the same-named scrap of paper that got itself collaged into the frenzy. (it appeared a week early, as it’s numbered 34) but it also calls up the essence of this practice. Courage, Faith and Trust in the process:

Keep showing up, don’t plan, don’t expect, just keep doing and making and going. And all will be well.

reflecting ‘so much more’ 27/52

Every week I create something.

Some weeks I create more.

In fact – most days I create loads – but in terms of the tangible, the painty reality, every week of this year I am creating at least one something: One page of One book of One year

I’m over half way in now, and I’m detecting more and more patterns all the time, every one a metaphor for the unfolding times in which they’re made:

Some weeks start on the first day and incrementally develop a little at a time.
Some weeks are a flurry of fervour, forced into focus in a short few days: blurting out in totality at the start, or squished up against the finishing hours.

They all reflect some underlying aspects, some current cares and the modality of the moment:
Words and feelings ooze in and out.. You might not hear them, but we both know they are there.

Weaving in the elements: internal and external.

There’s what rests on the surface, and there’s so much more.

The surface reflects to you what you project out.
For everyone it’s something personal and new.

Each page, each week, each is contained within a season of interest with the cast of supporting characters who meander about and around my days. These recent weeks have been populated by some images that I printed more than I needed for a project I’ve since finished. Smiling, familiar faces from within the framework that structures these times. Left over faces smile out of these times.

Here from the perspective of a photo I see all that I’d like to do to ‘finish’ the image. But that week has passed so it’s another that I’ll leave as it is, almost ready, a little soft in the middle and a bit raw in places. It’s all ok.
Time pushes on, I’m over the other side of this one now.

The Gestalt is Revealed 24/52

“To see patterns is to understand.”

Do you know Jason Silva?
He’s media artist, futurist, philosopher,
he’s a ball of frenetic energy and enthusiasm and with a magnificent mastery of descriptive language he spills this energy out into the internet in Shots of Awe.

I like Jason Silva a LOT.

I was listening to him talking with Tim Ferris while I made the most part of this page.

butterfly overflow (9/52)

Week 9 of this year is made out of the colours of Spring, honoring the sense of Spring as the world comes back to life after her quiet dormant months. And some of last week’s butterflies have flitted across into this week too. I had a big old tidy up after finishing that project and all the left over butterflies have landed here. (I say all of them… a few got away as you’ll see on the next page).

The week fell on the crossover from February to March, so warranted another list. Seems like there’s a reason for a list pretty much every week now. It’s in the background, but it can germinate there. I’ll patiently await the first shoots of development as the month wears on.

Another week, another meme:

When you do what you fear the most you can do anything.

Ok, yeh, I can take that on as a challenge. I’ve crossed some metaphorical bridges lately, and my metaphorical-bridge-crossing skills are notably sharper as a result. I’ve also come to realise I can’t always tell the difference between the pit-of-the-guts anxiety feeling and its close cousin, the visceral buzz of anticipation feeling.

So I’ve actively decided that henceforth, if I’m in any doubt, I’ll assume its the latter.

It is the feeling of butterflies.

What the eye-fish?

It might look like I’ve been deliberately obtuse about the eye-fish thing…

What can I say, they appear in groups of three, and so far 2 of the 3 weeks of this new year’s book have hosted a set.

Yeh, really, they aren’t eyes, they aren’t fish. Eyes and fish are quite different things, and tbh, this one looks like it’s sprouted backward facing legs with which to march, tail first into the unknown.

But that’s just my drawing style – everything piled up on each other style. It’s really a trick of perspective. The eye-fish is, in actuality, some way off in the distance, and hugely bigger than the foreground scribbley yogini attempting to master Warrior 1 pose.

But if you know me at all, you’ll know, it’s not in my nature to be cryptic. So this is as baffling to me as it is to you.

Here are the facts as I understand them to be:

I draw what arrives in my head when I stop thinking.
Eye shape and fish shape are largely interchangable to me.
I think that thinking about the word Focus has had a bearing on my subconcious. (This doesn’t account for the fish)
They hang out in threes, cos having drawn the traditional arrangement of two, I have to (recent compulsion) add a third. I’ve been getting a lot of dreams involving third eyes (more on that another time).
The third eye is a thing. I didn’t make this up. It’s just not a literal viewing hole in the face (mostly anyhow)

So there we are, more info and less sense. It’s all a big brain-dump. Making sense is an improbable ask.

Unstuckness

Do you guys know Jane Davies? I’ve just watched this video of hers. Really simple black and white mark making, so vibrant and lively and really ‘in the moment’. It made me think how great this would be as a kick-start when I can’t get going. A reminder: don’t try and make something just do.

I was reminded of the stuckness all us artistfolk get somewhile.

It’s a bitch: that art-void head space. Can’t think, can’t make, creatively constipated.

It’s tiresome, it’s draining, it’s vexacious, and until you’ve gotten through it a few times, it can scare the pants off you: “What if it’s all gone? Dried up? Never coming back?…”
When I finished school last June I got struck down by it big time, and it didn’t let up for AGES. Months.

I tried to to coax my mojo back into being by sorting out my art making space. I tidied and reshuffled and organised… I even had a fantastic commission to get on with, but I was stubbornly standing in my own way and refusing to budge.

So I waited it out, I lined up ideas in my head and on paper and physically in little heaps about the place. (I think the 2 years of intensive study and practice running in parallel with some big life shifts in my personal world had just run the tank dry and I needed this long while to regroup.) So I used the time to seek out and absorb new influences. I played more with words than colors. I began to enjoy the world outside the confines of my head.

I haven’t entirely got back in the art-swing still yet. Doesn’t seem to be an ON / OFF, more a growing appetite. But everyday I’m feeding the spirit with the nourishing goodness on tap here in the online community and in the books I’ve acquired over the years; The simple beauties around and about in nature and people-made-stuff.

Today I’m beginning a new year long project – a page a week art journal/sketchbook. I feel sore and rusty in the art-muscles, but it’s coming back. (I also bought a bunch of new colours to play with in the sales!)

thoughts of the moment…

In the accidental gap year I found myself in last year, I determined myself to continue learning. I absorbed a wonderous feast of inspiration and enthusiam from the good folks of the internet. Yes, that includes you. I thank you sincerely.

Day 1 back at school, drawing with strips of paper.

I collected and devoured books and articles, blogs, tutorials and galleries (online and off). I explored new techniques and new media with whole-hearted abandon. I believe I learnt a lot.

close up: 1st in series ‘Structure’, drawing with paper.

Turns out I forgot a lot too.

I forgot the time lost to debating the obvious and making suposition about the intents behind all manner of art. With mind maps.

3d city scape constructed from recycled paper

I forgot that for every hour in the classroom, at least another one or two are needed for research and time lost down figurative blind alleys. I forgot how the time it takes swells and nudges out of place all other aspects of day to day being.

noticing, photographing, recording moments: all that visual stuff other folks don’t see…

I do remember having a big wobble at about this stage on my last course. The initial I’m an art student euphoria has burnt itself out and in its wake sits a mildly stunned version of me, in mini-crisis-of-intent. Just a stage in the process.

The shopping bag by my desk. Thank you for your simple wisdom, orange elephant.

resistance to drawing

Funny how some fragments of life become lodged in that part of the memory that keeps rolling back round to the front.

This was part of the conversation in my interview for art school 2 years ago…

Me: I’d really like to learn to draw
Tutor: Huh?
Me: Yeh, I can’t draw, y’know like real things
Tutor: Bullshit! Fuck, I’m not meant to swear in interviews…

This was the point I knew I was going to fit in.

In class with same tutor some while later we were drawing the music that was playing – the topic came up again: But you are drawing a real thing… or are you saying music isn’t a real thing?

But I still have this resistance towards drawing. I accept I can (to a degree) do it, but something inside me chooses not to. But I want to. But I don’t.

The inner-squabble continues, meanwhile I splosh and splatter and doodle inside the familiar comfort zone, rarely stretching out to sketch and interpret shapes and objects.

Page 32 began with ink and coffee dregs – the ideal background for some drawing of real things! I started out with some stuff in my immediate view – scissors, water jug, paint brushes, my left hand.