15 June 2020

Also, We Are Drawing The Saint Johns Bridge

3695We are either languid on one project or trying to do more than one simultaneously.

About three (!) years ago when I finished the drawing of Mount Saint Helens - Luuit - in eruption, I felt great guns to go on to something else. What do I love? Landmarks! What sort of landmark? How about something more geometrical, like a bridge. What's the best bridge? The Saint Johns Bridge, of course.

So I sharked me a picture of it from the intarwebz (this is before I had a good one of my own) and laid down my grid on a big piece of Bristol, and started in. And then, finding the structure in some parts was more complex than I thought, hit a wall.

And this piece of Bristol has lain there ever since, while I painted over it and cats walked over it (don't fret, it's not as nasty as all that ... nothing an eraser and a bit of elbow grease can't fix).

So, today, something told me to get it back up to the top of the stack, said "to hell with the technical complexity, this is about learning something, just stick it out and do the best you can", and I accomplished this:

I am once again painting,which in this case is drawing, and what is drawing but painting with graphite? And after I laid that down, I had that spark, that frisson, that something just clicked. Like with the drawing of Luuit, I finally ... finally ... grasped that I could just possibly do this, just represent it the best I can, take it easy, one square at a time, and come as close as I can.

The Luuit drawing was an approimation, after all, and look how good it wound up!


Yeah, I can do this.

No comments: