If I made an uneven surface and gouged and scratched it, roughed it up, scraped it into distress, then poured ink to race through these riverbeds as I tilt the page, flat areas would pool and flood. I'd let the pigment fade back before rinsing it off like rain runs across plains, rinse some of the colour away to form ridges and dams of dark, let the stain sit and soak in. I can watch it ooze towards the edges and slop onto the floor like thick rain.
What's the heaviest paper I have?
Is it up to such treatment?
Only one way to find out.
I find some thick watercolour paper. I hate the rectangle pages, so I tear the edges off, resort to help from the bread knife, find they now remind me of land edged by coves and cliffs and reefs and a"big island" shape surrounded by a scattering of outcrops, like the last touches of land before it gives up to the vastness of the sea. So, I try to ignore all of that and find the screwdriver and a gouge and get busy, try not to look too close just yet.
A little while later, I find myself looking at imaginary islands, diagrams like hand-drawn maps, reminders of colour plates in Treasure Island, reminders of things real, and as my mind is longing for freedom, it finds itself harking back to that beach in Western Scotland, the track off the mountains in the Sierra Nevada that stumbles into a waterfall, animal tracks across sand, ancient field and boundary lines caught in shots from space, a cliff in Pembrokeshire where I sat out the afternoon watching dolphins and a waves rushing across shallows.
Which is all very well, except I wanted to work with the accidental, wanted a bit of an adventure, wanted to get a bit abstract.
No surprise that I spent so long wrestling with a surface that I didn't get to dip the brush into the ink. The paper is spread across the kitchen table, gets moved for meals then brought back again. It will attract a little pile of half-done things that will sit together through January. I guess it's been so long since I picked up a brush that this serves me right. Maybe I should work in the dark for a while and just let rip for a few pages with no regard for what it might look like? Maybe I should go back to something a bit more concrete like setting up a still life and approaching it as an experimental drawing project?
Anyone have any tips on how to push through this phase and come out the other side?
11 comments:
I was so enthralled with your writing that I didn't even realize there was an issue with the art! Don't worry about the results, you will probably like them in a few weeks. Keep working :)
good morning Annie! what a wonderful word journey I've just been on with your post! I was with you all the way to the end - actually I think you describe a very normal part of the process - the excitement of what we see in our head and then the actual physical manifestation seem to be two different things, at least for me - I can only speak for myself, but this is when I make the effort to keep pushing until the excitement returns and for me it always does, not like I saw originally, but something totally unexpected - it seems the norm in my world! carry on!! xo
Hi Deborah. Yes - my writing seemed to have all the qualities I was wanting in my artwork! Anyway, I will keep these efforts and come back to them. with renewed gusto! Thanks for your thoughts.
Hi Jeane. Thank you. Words in flow. Marks on paper, not in flow!! This is something I've not been able to put into publishable words before. Usually it's just a rant of bad words! Anyway, I think I need to adopt more of a see what happens attitude and to try to lose myself in it all again - that's always such a relief!! But like you advise, I'll try to stand my ground with my grouchy marks and see if I can transform them into something more interesting instead. Good to hear that this is what happens. Thanks. Ax
A wonderful flow of words. A few snips here and there, and this is a poem.
Enjoy your weekend!
Hi Jacqueline. Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment. Yes, maybe.....I was so busy looking at a piece of paper that I hadn't realised!!
Oh, I know about this as I face it most days in the studio...rarely does a piece fall together(for me) without asking for a commitment larger than I expected. By all means go back in prepared to let go of the best parts, the expectations and find another place of beauty or loss of it all...no matter, you'll be richer for the experience and you have a great piece of writing too!
I don't have any tips, all I know is this was beautiful and is the kind of writing that jump starts my heart! I wish more people were encouraged to write like this, thank you for sharing!
I suffer the same dilemma, Annie. The desire is always there, but sometimes the action gets stuck. I'll leave you with this, a quote that is printed in large letters on the zippered pouch I bought recently for my field watercolor set...
BEGIN ANYWHERE
John Cage
Happy New Year!
Lyn
Hi Mary Ann. It's so good to hear that this isn't just something happening to me! I'm so pleased that so many of the visual artists whose work I admire have chipped in with tips. Will have to see how it goes next time, but I like your honesty about being prepared to let go of the best parts. Thanks for your input.
Hi Buckaroo Barbie. Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment. Well it was written out of necessity and came straight from my frustration!!
Hi Lyn. Well, anything from John Cage is always going to be a hit with me, so thanks for that. I have such an attitude in place for music and writing, so I guess I need to shift it across to my sketchbooks. In fact, I WILL!! Thanks again. Happy new year.
Hi Annie - I think that's the place we least like to visit. When we have had ideas and visions bubbling, that want to burst out and be done - and then we do and it doesn't all quite work and looks a bit drab and unexpectedly boring perhaps or at least not what we thought and definitely not what we hoped and then we get a bit sad and down on ourselves for failing to be creatively expressive and blahh blahh blahh blahs. I think you are doing the right things - leaving them, where you can see them and waiting for them to whisper to you what next...It will happen, just maybe not right now. Good luck!!!
Hi Fiona. Thanks for your thoughts. I just had lunch opposite those pages wondering about what next and only came up with blanks. Think they've done very well not to have had a shopping list scrawled on the back of them or just to have got stuck in that pile of stuff that collects in the kitchen. What I find interesting, is that in my writing or music, I usually find other ways to carry on, find other ways to say what I was working with. I guess all that daily work pays off and I don't have that to draw on in visual work. Anyway, I'm still hoping that one day I'll know what to do next. Thanks again.
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