A new drawing is complete...I have taken a few snapshots (not the fancy digital images from the art photographer, but the idea still comes across).
Temporal Reverie
Graphite and watercolor on Arches hot press watercolor paper
26 x 32 inches
Some detail photos:
That magnificent fish is a coelacanth...and yes, I used the common free use image as a reference (to some degree) - lets just say, they ain't easy to find and I looked for a specimen to photograph myself (boy, and how), as I had a specific need to appropriate a specific fish that had to do with a specific dream (the fish are considered to be a missing evolutionary link because they have leg-like fins, therefore, when I was having my reverie on the temporal and the transitional, it was the coelacanth that swam into my vision).
I cannot figure out how to import video into this blog (Jo, tell me what to do) but there is gorgeous, and exceptionally rare footage of them swimming and eating in their very unusual handstand position on ARKive (a site that documents all endangered animals on earth...a real time suck if you are into that sort of thing).
I loved making this drawing - I do not find that creating drawings is a drudgery or a fight, and I am perplexed when artists talk about their struggles with creating their art or the chore of having to complete the task.
When in the studio, there is a state that I enter where executing the drawing becomes both a cerebral and an intuitive experience - yes, it is a struggle of sorts - with shape and form and marks and interaction with the pencil and the paper. But, I love that sense of struggle and that feeling of adventure and risk - will this happen and how will it happen?
This is not to say that the process of art is easy - although it should be enjoyable, gratifying and pleasurable - and I question the motivation of those artists who complain about the actual execution of their vocation.
I trusted what I wanted, not what I thought would work. I did what I myself thought was interesting, and left its reception to the gods.
- Stephen Pressfield, The War of Art
The magnificent Jo Bradney, who does all of the HTML voodoo to make my website and blog appear, told me how to make image links appear (thanks Jo!):
