There are times when I take a step back from my drawings, and try to look at them with fresh eyes. I wonder, what am I drawn to in these drawings?
I seem to be drawing lots and lots of tangly lines these days. The more lines the better. The more they intersect and criss-cross, the more I can lean into the drawing and hang with it a while.
Do drawings show something of our lives at the time of making them? When there are lots of chaotic lines, does this show the craziness of my everyday life? When the drawings are a bit wonky or off-kilter, does this reveal the slightly out-of-balance feel of each day crashing in? Drawings, I believe, both reveal the state of things, AND are a means to make sense of things: to wrestle the tangly lines into something that makes a bit of sense, and to celebrate the wonky aspects by leaving them be and flourishing them with color.
Here are a couple of quotes I like:
Drawing is the artist’s most direct and spontaneous expression, a species of writing: it reveals, better than does painting, his true personality. (Edgar Degas)
Drawing is intimate and reveals exactly where we are, and in a culture that isn’t comfortable with that, it frightens many. You just cannot cheat when you draw. (Sandy Davison)
Drawing is the discipline by which I constantly discover the world. (Frederick Franck)
Draw everywhere and all the time. An artist is a sketchbook with a person attached. (Irwin Greenberg)
