Summer has finally settled in, a thin sheen of sweat has comfortably made itself at home on the back of my neck and I am reminded of the appeals of a cold shower. I have progressed on two pieces to end off spring's transitionary period, a painting on paper and an ink pen illustration on paper.
Spell, May 2024. 12" x 22" acrylic on paper.
I usually paint at night. That doesn’t mean I don’t work during the day however, immediately after sunset is when I find the most ease at going for hours working on a piece without noticing. This painting I have unconfidently named “Spell” was something I wanted to spit out after finishing the spring semester to keep the creative juices flowing. An image of two men in a field, unknown if the forward figure knows of the background figure's presence or if he is waiting for his arrival. Fireflies add additional life to the scene and a single grasshopper on a figure's shoulder that he does not deny its landing and instead co-exists alongside.
Stillness and anticipation seem to be strong intentions when working through this piece. A meeting of two figures, whether planned or not, in the comfort and privacy of nature. It’s all about anticipation for something to come. I think my original sketch intended the image to be more poster-like, big blocks of flat color moving around the figures with simplified characters and context. Had I gave into working with gouache this would’ve had a very different energy probably closer to something more experimental for me but when working with acrylic and a pencil sketch, I allowed my natural style take over.
Levels are something I've been hoping to implement into more of my works. While this piece has a reasonably simply format, by layer the plantlife and distancing the figures I hoped to create more depth in this piece. I’m not too fond of working on overly intricate backgrounds but I want to express a context of some sort even if it's not too overdone. While
the plant life was intended to be inspired by swamp cattails and corn fields without truly referencing either during the process. Despite the full coverage clothing being worn, I imagined they were in a warm, muggy summer night where they stood in the weeds, a buzzing feeling of gnats and bugs, and a cool sweat that they had both been living in that it no longer caused discomfort. Going forward I should consider involving myself in nature studies to make these worlds more immersive but even with limited reference I think it works as visual shorthand to achieve my intention of a private, ever extending, natural space for the two figures to come together in.
I have been embracing more monochromatic works from myself. I used to be so focused on creating these colorful worlds, half due to enjoyment and the other half self expectation. By reeling back occasionally it’s allowed me to focus on different elements; particularly lighting and contrast is an area I have been trying to improve on.
In the case of “Spell”, there is a desire to further brighten the backlight figures and plantlife and darken the front figure so their faces are more illegible. There can be intentions in works that don’t come out as planned and I felt I had progressed this piece to a point of satisfaction and wanted to progress onto something else, so I did.
Waking Up, June 2024, 11" x 22" ink pen on paper
My June project was a micron illustration on paper, a project I started at work in hopes of being able to progress on projects outside of my home. Outside of my private, comfortable spaces and instead working to be able to be less picky on my conditions to work on art.
Was this alone in an office from the hours of 11:30PM to 1AM? Maybe, but still a break from the normal routine.
The sketch for the piece was a little 1” by 2” thumbnail I made and just ran with. Overthinking has become an enemy to me and when I think back to the ease of my drawing habits in my teen years, I have become a student to regain that strength in creating again. Maybe not at the same scale but at least increasing ease that has been showing itself in the past year and a half.
There is a lot more control involved in pen work compared to painting simply due to the scale of the tool (or atleast with how I use the tools respectively). In middle school I loved ink work, hoping to become a comic artist despite never writing any stories to involve my characters in. I drew so much with a pen previously but as I have gotten older the comfort of using my chunky brushes makes covering a blank canvas more natural, it's caused me to grow fearful of pen only works.
By fearful, I think lazy is a more preferred adjective. Any recent ink illustrations I worked on usually progressed by illustrating the figures first and by the time I would have to consider a background or context I had already moved on to a different idea. The permanence and inefficiency of layering ink did not fit too well into my processes.
This piece that I will temporarily name, “Waking Up” has been a result of simply trying to will myself to progress. Moving from a 20 second thumbnail sketch to a 11”x22” sheet of paper in a matter of minutes.
Going into this piece I knew a few things; I knew I wanted a figure with a six pack connected to an excessive and unrealistic amount of wires that ultimately extend to nowhere and a shared dual face extension off the main figure. This figure became an incredibly buff robot with huge shoulder pads and a ‘69’ star that covers their crotch. The alligators that apparently swim around the platform the figure is raised above came from my previous printmaking project “Save the Swamps” and a desire to try to draw more gators. Even in this implied industrial setting I need nature/natural life to be involved in some way.
When working on “Waking Up,” I allowed myself to just scribble. There is a certain part of myself that understands a deadline no matter what I am working on, and while this had no deadline the time it took to layer the shadows was a slog and I needed to feel more progression. Especially when looking on a large sheet of almost empty paper, that intimidation bites down real fast of how slow you’re moving. If I get bored I will not enjoy the process and thus will deem the piece unworkable, so I changed tactics and started scribbling.
It wasn’t until I allowed myself to scribble I could suddenly reference so many artists that work with an aggressive hand. As soon as I started doing this it made sense, but before that I truly hadn’t even considered it before. I was drawing carefully because I was not as confident with my lines but even considering the aggressiveness of the image, it needed an aggressive hand to match the figure's expression. The piece deserved it.
Describing it as aggressive and actually looking at the linework, I don't feel it's as messy as I felt it looked when working on it but compared to my typical methodology, it's messy for me. I think this shows that I can probably push it further, and play with thicker pens or brushes. I felt much happier with the results than had I been cautious progressing through the illustration.
From the beginning, I hoped, similar to ‘Spell’s goals; that I could achieve a higher contrast image, but as soon as I started considering breaking out ink jars and paintbrushes I decided to pull back. I might go back one day with a pot of ink and fulfill my ideas of high contrast, but truly my pens are dying and I’m content with how she looks. Maybe I have a fear of overworking a piece but I am capable of the choice of returning to this piece whenever I see fit so for now she will live like this.
Maybe I should try working a piece from dark to light instead.
Finishing this drawing also gave me a lot more inspiration for further ink work, both with pens and brushes. It also gave me a nice vacation from painting which really just made me miss my canvas. I am not yet comfortable sharing my concepts as they move so quickly and you truly never know which ones you’ll latch onto but I am looking forward to going into my next projects.
