a drawing a day

Week 6. Squeezed into a busy 7 days of puppet finishing, puppet teaching, heart-selling, Etsy shipping, weight-lifting, and an Olympic figure skating watching obsession. Some done waiting in check-out lines, a good place for drawing. 

surrender

Always am I trying to catch the thing that comes and brings a great need to make something, that your hands become so distracted, they are clumsy with anything else you force them to do. And when you finally let it through, it's as if it makes itself, and you are just watching on mystified. I would like to know how to invite that to visit more often. 

Another Travis Knapp piece, this time a poem for Pete Seeger you can listen to here. 

a drawing a day

Week 5! I've stuck with something past a month! Some bus-ride drawings which made me ill, Baba Yaga, another lady with a cat, and a little deviation this week: working on a larger ink drawing a little each day. It's nice that this drawing-a-day project has carved some space in my schedule to be able to feel I can work on my own art every day like that.

bird by bird: robin #1

I got a call out of the blue for two bird puppets for a production of The Secret Garden (as things normally tend to go around here.) The first one was to flap its wings while perched. I'd done some flapping penguins for Luna's Sea, but those were flat cutouts with exposed mechanicals meant for background atmosphere. So the first order of business was to make sure I could get a mechanism to do the right movement. I did a fast tape and cardboard mock up to see if what was in my head would actually work. 

And it did:

The next step, get to know robins. The director wanted the British species which are quite different than our American version. I use reference through the whole process, but I like to get the feeling of something into my hands, so that when I'm in the passionate moment of manipulating materials, it's a matter of finding, not thinking the shape. 

And as usual it begins with digging through my stock of stuff to see what's telling me it's a robin. (This is why I'll never accept being called a pack rat- I actually use all the junk I stow!) First, a basic structure, hollow to house the wing mechanism, but also sturdy. I ended up with a section of thick cardboard tube and styrofoam which I started covering in several air-dry clays. A cardboard beak as a placer to help me find its expression. 

Then, join them together, and messing around for the right shape and posture. I added more cardboard to get a more graceful bird curve. Because I'm impatient I started ripping the cardboard rather than cutting it, and found that it made a beautiful feather effect. Good thing, because I hadn't even considered surface covering yet.

I went with the happy accident, added more to see if it was as good as I thought. 

And I got really into it, using ripped pieces to do the fleshing out rather than clay as I'd expected.

End of the first day- I'd added eyeballs and a clay beak so it could sit more happily 

with its full senses overnight. When I woke up the next morning it looked all too hawkish. 

While I considered how to fix that I worked on a wing. 

I went back to my comfortable cardboard, having made lots of paper-product wings before. 

Carved down the beak a bit. This is why I only use materials that have both additive and subtractive qualities. And a moment to consider and compare the source. Erm, right, about those wings...

And wing situation handled. 

Attached with canvas for a joint to allow for ease of flapping.

Still wondering if this ripped cardboard is too good to be true, I test it with some paint. 

Yup, I still love it.

Put up to roost for another night. 

Still got to get that other wing on.

Second wing added, beak widened, more clay to smooth and strengthen transition from head to body, and eye sockets carved larger-- because it was still looking like a larger species of bird. Tricky because it is actually larger, for stage effect reasons. 

Then, joy! More cardboard feathers onto the head. 

Larger eyeball. And more accurate paint.

Some wing painting, and a test of adding a bit of real feather for a hint of movement.

Highlights and details coming in. Perched again for the night. 

Morning light after a long work night is always a bit harrowing. 

But I'm still happy with him the next day. 

More to come, but robin #2 needs some coming along. 

a drawing a day

Week 4, still up to it. Memories of Istanbul, contemplative studies, strange synchronistic creatures, sketches of birds for a puppet commission, and my obsession with the news report of the lost ghost ship filled with cannibal rats. I imagine there might be just one rat left. 

fresh hearts

There are 9 new ones today, including 3 blanks for custom lettering. On a secret blog for Antinomia readers first until midnight tonight. Go to love-recycled.

Update: this crop is sold out!

bright new way

Last fall my ridiculously talented friend Travis Knapp recorded an album, and I loved it so much I put my art all over it. It's one of my favourite things I've illustrated; both the music and the way the printing on toned recycled paper came out. I'd already spontaneously done a pen & ink drawing a few months earlier when I first heard his Permaculture Saints, which you might recall from this previous post. That fit nicely on the back of the booklet-style cover.

Travis had a solid vision of the cover piece incorporating a musical "natural" symbol, and a wooded pathway into the sunrise. It took me about 100 tries with a brush to come up with the line work that was just right. Then a little brown paper and watercolour landscape to fit inside. He'd scribbled the album title on one of his layout ideas, and it turned out to be the perfect font.

The inside and lyrics booklet are punctuated with spot art of plants, birds and foxes. A friendly studio headed by Pat Burke handled the design and printing. I wasn't sure how my brown paper illustrations would print on brown paper, but it turned out just lovely. 

Travis is currently on an album tour, traveling America by bike with his banjo on his back. I ran into him a few years ago at the Ithaca Zen Center where he was the resident gardener and musician. You can tell in the first moments of meeting him that he's a fellow of unusually generous heart and extra bright spirit. Though he's got an illustrious background (including winning the BMI John Lennon Songwriter's award) he joyfully does his work without need of accolades or fanfare in the sparsely populated woods of New York state. But having seen the way his music and gentle way of being affect people, I think it's important to spread it around a little more. So I'm very happy about this album and his tour, and I hope you'll have a listen and follow his adventure on his blog.

After getting very acquainted with my Epson wide-format fine art printer this week, the sepia tone ink work is coming out far better than the laser prints I've been doing for ten years. So at long last, Permaculture Saints is available as a print, and it's part of a deluxe package with the album on my Etsy store. (Yes, my Etsy store! It's back!) 

a drawing a day

Week three. Thoughts dwell on sleep, music, the cold, and things that warm. Days become imbalanced: very fast drawings done in a hurry, very slow drawings done with lots of contemplation. One day a coffee cup filled in for the lack of paper at work. I like the changing pace.