Still

On one occasion in first grade we were instructed to write a short paragraph that began with the premise that we were ideating on our porches. The we were to commandeer the crayons and draw what we had written. When we were done, people marveled over my drawing for the usual reason – they thought I could draw well. There was another marvel for them in my work, which I have always felt mortified by, and that's my singular lack of imagination. Oh, they didn't see it that way, but...well, how could anyone not? They drew their dreams. I had drawn myself sitting on a porch thinking. That's some bloody literal-mindedness for ya right there.

I was told once by a teacher at Franklin that I fall naturally into the category of illustrator. I don't know how I feel about that, as I know intellectually it's not a bad thing. Most of the works that have spoken to me have been the work of illustrators whose voices I aspired to. Still, the comment brought up that shame over the grade-school assignment: I wish I was more creative, more imaginative.

When I read books, sometimes I try to keep that illustrator comment in mind. Does anything stand out as something I would draw were I to land that gig? I think I'm taking the wrong approach, as an illustration does not necessarily mean scenery. I could easily do objects, characters...but I always think scenery.

Actually, what I think is turning a book into a movie – literal scenery. I've been seeing them that way since high school...I edit them in my mind, direct the performances, decide which dialog to cut or change, what to do with the staging and cameras, the lighting, the score and sound terrain...I've been reading A Wrinkle in Time one chapter every few days to linger over it. In this book, characters “tesser”, that is they travel via tesseract. When I read Madeleine L'Engle's description of the first leg of the journey, I knew just how to direct that sequence to convey the physical experience of it to my audience. Shame I'm an not a director with the backing and standing to actually do it, that movie will remain locked in my head forever. No one will see it. Not that I've figured out how to convincingly put the major character of Charles Wallace on film...

But that gets to one of my major frustrations. I don't visualize in images, I see in movement. If I could animate with the same full detail and shading with which I do a single drawing, that's what I'd be doing. .Oh, how I would love to make my drawings come alive! I love drawing women, but if I could do a portrait with eyes that blink, or hair that subtly shifts – or wildly dances! A portrait where, if you look closely, you can see her breathing.

Where is the magic of Harry Potter when I need it?

Years ago I was entranced by Nadja Salerno-Sonenberg. She was regarded by her peers (the stuffy world of classical music) with some consternation and dismay, and I've heard some scorn, because she was not content to remain staid by her art. When NS-S played, she played to feel. She stomped and swayed, grimaced and wept, she let the music move her and those raw emotions were naked on her face. For the audience, that's powerful to behold. It's entrancing, exhilarating. She was often likened to a rock star of the orchestra.

I've always wanted to draw her playing, except...no single image does justice her raptures. It would take a whole series to convey just one brief moment of one of her performances. Her face...that's what entrances me most. She's like a woman having sex when she plays. It's astonishingly beautiful to behold her visceral responses set free, fully felt.

That's what I see when you lay out a blank sheet before me. I see a sequence of beauty that I cannot reduce to a still image.

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Jesseca has pointed me to a light-table that is easily accessible and large enough not to risk folding a page over its edges. It's my front window. As long as I remove the tape that held it up slowly, and not let the tape eat the paper, it works great! So, I'm taking my commissioned piece back to the point of a completed trace. That's not a real setback, and it gets me a clean drawing I can really be happy with. 

This doesn't the need for doing grids, I still need that process for enlarging, but it does mean the final piece will be free of  lines I couldn't entirely erase.  As much as I like the idea of letting some of the work show,  I'm not at all happy charging money for a drawing that has visible gridlines.

About tracing...I used to think that in order for a piece to be "honest", it had to be entirely by eye. Tracing was a cheat, I  thought. That led to any number of attempts abandined because something didn't line up as I needed it to, some detail out of proportion, etc.  Still, the mistaken prejudice persisted and that added to to the block that was building.   

 That's a  hangup and a misconception others aspiring artists may hold, so I want to say clearly to you: "it's bullshit".   Plenty of artists do this.  For my own particular work, trace lines are just placeholders anyway, to make sure everything is where it should be.  They get erased as I get around to each detail, and replaced with more nuanced shading.  I'm alwasy happiest with a detail when I can convey oit through tonal field with no contour line remaining at all.  But saying that sounds like I;m trying to excuse the use of  contour lines...and that re-enforces the misconception.  Your own art, your style or voice, may well incorporate contour lines.  There's nothing wrong with tracing!  What matter is what you do with it from that point.  

Let me be clear, though, doing the work by eye is indispensible when you're still learning - and you should always be "still learning", if that process ever ends you might as well retire. The point is to train your mind to process the visual information, to learn how to translate what you're seeing to the page.  However, once you reach a certain point it's okay to take shortcuts.  You''ll know where the real work is. I can't map out every thread of Jesseca's hat, but I can make it look like I did.  Place the drawing over the photo and you'll see discrepancies.  What matters is getting the feel of it right, and conveying the essence.

You do what the image demands.  Nothing is a cheat if it gets you there.