Still drawing… Generally, if I am not blogging it is because I am fully engaged with my studio work and not stepping back to process and reflect. It is a good place to be creatively, but in the virtual world, it looks like I have dropped off the planet. In fact, I think my feedburner does not even recognize me anymore.
So, in a meager attempt to nurture a virtual presence, a little studio update is in order:
For the first time in ages, I am working on four simultaneous pieces; the large 5 x 3 foot Sybil, plus three smaller pieces (around 18 x 24). I have spent most of the summer on the Sybil and have completed the figure:
This piece also involves drawing a typewriter and for a reference I am using a 1930s Remington that belonged to my great aunt Sara during her WWII typing years. Oh, typewriter, in you I have met my drawing match: mechanical objects are not my passion – I can draw fabric and veins without much effort, but the angles and planes of the typewriter are a nice new challenge:
In addition to the Sybil, I have three smaller drawings that I want to have completed by November for a show scheduled for early next year. Pragmatic thinking about the time that would be involved for finishing the Sybil made me realize that I had to put her aside for a while. I have at least 200 more hours of drawing ahead on that piece (perhaps more…I seem to be drawing slower and slower as time goes by). Oh, just as well…
The three smaller drawings are based on Strange Tales from earlier this year (one of which is still unfinished). For the most part, I consider the Strange Tales terminal pieces and not studies: these are sketch ideas that were never intended as larger drawings, rather ideas that were interesting enough to engage me so I fleshed them out into little sketchbook drawings. But, something about these three Strange Tales compelled me to make them bigger, each of them embodying a mystical southern quality that harks back to my love of narrative. Plus, I want more detail and refinement and a larger scale so I can embellish them with gold leaf and beading. The first is Leora which now has its gold leaf and is ready for beading:
The second is based on Beatrice, still in progress:
And, at some point in the next month, I will start the third…detail pictures to come as that one is underway.
Oh, and here are my beads - laid out and ready for stitching into the separate drawings (each drawing will have slightly different beadwork):
(Needless to say, I have a nice little stash of beads left over after finishing each of the beaded drawings, so I have taken up beading necklaces with the excess.)
Although I am eager to work on the large Sybil drawing, I don’t mind having a more attainable sense gratification from finishing a few smaller pieces in the span of 4 - 5 months, particularly since over half of 2011 and a fair chunk of 2012 was spent on one drawing.
As stated in my favorite out-of-context line of poetry: “art is long and time is fleeting…” (with sincere apologies to Longfellow for hijacking of original intent).