Onions Again

 The day before the onions, I tried a box of Kleenex. My drawing was not a complete disaster, just falling down slightly when it came to perspective. Okay, I need to work on perspective, especially with straight, architectural lines. On the other hand, those things don't do much for my soul. It's the more irregular, organic shapes (and colors) that put the hand that holds my pencil in a place of serenity as well as effort. Not a contradiction. Focusing outward, one loses the self. Physical work can be meditation, and doing something, e.g., drawing, works better for me than sitting still and trying to "empty" my mind.

I

"Back to the drawing board," after weeks away, starts with the blind contour drawing, the drawing made by looking only at the subject and not at the paper or the lines appearing on it. The point here is to see and to let one's hand transcribe directly from one's eyes.

I decided not to challenge myself with the entire wooden bowl full of onions and garlic but to limit my drawing to a single onion. For me, simplicity of subject can sometimes aid in making my drawing more meditative (although at other times a complex drawing that takes a long time can be very satisfying).

Meditation: Back to Fresh Fruit (Bananas)

Part II of Elizabeth Abeel's class called "Seeing as an Artist Sees" (or, as we sometimes call it more simply, "Drawing") focuses on charcoal drawing, which we'll begin this coming Wednesday. For practice this past week, however, it was still work at home with pencil, and Betsy suggested we revisit contour drawing. So I went back to fruit as a subject for the blind contour drawing below. If you'll recall, a blind contour drawing means you're only looking at the subject -- in this case, the bananas -- and not at your paper and pencil. 

We had company over the weekend, so rather than attempt a finished drawing of the entire bunch of bananas I drew only one and called it good for one morning. It does feel good to be drawing again. What will the messy charcoal experience feel like? Stay tuned to find out!

Finally, Back to the Drawing Board: Butter Dish

After laboring over the close work of trying to duplicate abstract sketches, training for the eye more than the hand, I needed the relief of drawing something real. My need to practice on a daily basis is obvious! (The little doodly thing in the upper-righthand corner was a drawing of a head of garlic.) And it's clear, too, that I really need the abstract duplication exercises, as that focuses on proportion, one of my weakest points in drawing.

Meditation: A Sheep for the Little Prince

This well-worn, wobbly stuffed animal has been a pet of mine for many years (though not as many as you might suppose), and I thought it would be a nice change from drawing fruit and vegetables. David was skeptical. “It has no definition, no strong lines. It’s going to be very difficult.” But since there’s no such thing as a failed meditation, I went ahead and made the attempt.

Antoine de St.-Exupery’s classic book, The Little Prince, opens with the little prince asking the pilot in the desert to draw him a sheep. (He has his reasons.) My little stuffed animal always reminds me of the pilot’s initial efforts. It’s why I adopted him in the first place.

Meditation: Small Mammal Skull (Minus Lower Jaw)

Subject

Pure Contours

Final Drawing

Meditation: Stuffed Fish (Not Edible)

Subject

Not a gilded lily on our bathroom wall but a gilded fish. I've been thinking about drawing it for a while now and finally got at it. Wanted to draw with a freer hand, though. Big lines, no erasing. Here's how it turned out.

Pure contour

Pure contour didn't leave room on the sheet of paper for the fish's head, while final drawing (you can see first, abandoned sketch underneath the final) left out the tail. I'll probably return to this subject in the future.

Final drawing

Surprising Obsession and Yearning

My five-pear meditation on Thursday morning was satisfying at the time. That is, it did its work as meditation. Somehow, though, I didn’t feel I’d caught the essence of the pears, and the next morning I drew a single pear over and over and over.

I like the sketchy, not overworked effect of the last drawing, but I still felt something was missing, and I realized I had begun to yearn for --

color! Satisfied for years with only pencil or black ink pen, I am surprised to find a hunger for color growing in me. Fortunately, the little beginner's art kit David gave me for Christmas – what? ten years ago? – includes, along with pencils, colored pencils and pastel sticks. So "back to the drawing board" on Friday evening was a move made with new tools.

This is a big (though still quiet) leap for me to take, and I’m not sure what 2014 will manifest, in terms of my drawing experiments. Perhaps there will be more expeditions into color; on the other hand, there may well be a retreat to monochrome. It doesn’t matter. It’s all just part of looking, seeing, and trying things out. And however obsessive I become over the day's subject, the meditative practice of drawing continues to provide a calm oasis in my world.