Percolating, part 2: An old fence as muse

As I wrote last time, the New Mexico sky has been one muse for me here.  I'm about to find out how good a muse--or rather how good an observer/interpreter I am--as I warp up a small PVC loom and start a little wedge weave in DMC cotton floss.  Stay tuned on that.

Meanwhile I've been fascinated by the lines of an old fence I walk past every morning here on the path by the old railroad.  Our neighborhood used to be a cattle ranch, and I imagine the fence is left over from that.  I love how the posts are leaning and the barbed wire is making all kinds of cool lines and swirls and loops and is falling into disrepair on the ground.  These days, I like the idea of an open, permeable barrier much better than a solid barrier.

So I was telling a friend about this obsession and he gave me a sketchbook in a very cool format, 6" tall and 18" wide (!) and challenged me to fill it with sketches of the fence in the next month. Luckily there are only 12 pages--very nice watercolor paper pages that my rudimentary sketches don't do justice to--so this is a doable challenge.

I've been really enjoying taking this notebook and a few pencils and maybe some watercolor crayons out every morning and spending no more than 15-20 minutes messing around sketching sections of the fence.  Though I have put in a few trees and cholla cacti and wildflowers, I'm not really interested in capturing much of the landscape.  I really just want those posts and that crazy wire.

I am not a natural draughtswoman.  Collage is often my preferred design medium.  I have had no formal instruction in drawing at all. So I am learning, slowly, some pretty basic skills here.  But I'm also discovering some unexpected things with this experiment:

• When I have to draw something I slow down and observe it much more carefully.  It could be that one of the chief benefits of drawing is learning how to really look.  (Duh.)  It's yet another meditative experience. 
• The mark-making tools you use make a tremendous difference in the feeling of the final piece.  For me, pencils are too tentative and I'm prone to hesitate and try to erase.  I do better, freer work with pens or watercolor crayons I can't erase.  (Face-palm.)  
• As I approach each day's sketch I consider yet another, better way to render the subject.  I understand now why so many artists sketch the same thing multiple times.  (Again, duh.)
• The long narrow sketchbook format is surprisingly freeing, perhaps because it's such a good match for the subject.  It makes one decision, dimensions, for me.  I'm going to keep my eyes out for other unusual sizes and shapes.  

It remains to be seen whether these fences will make it into a tapestry.  Meanwhile I'm having a lot of fun.  

Adventures in drawing

Here's my dirty little artistic secret:   I can't draw.  Or maybe I should rephrase that, since I always give my students a hard time when they say they can't do something.  I don't draw.  I've never had a drawing class and I don't practice drawing nearly enough to be as good at it as I'd like.  (I'm speaking here of realistic drawing, the attempt to render an accurate likeness.)  

One way I've found to conquer my drawing anxiety and even sometimes made some interesting drawings, is to do blind contour drawing.  Basically the idea is you slowly run your eyes along the contours of an object and use your pencil to trace those contours, without looking at the paper or raising your pencil from the paper at all.  Obviously it will not be an accurate likeness, but the lines that result can be sensitive and engaging. You can find a good 3-minute video tutorial HERE.  I've also used the instructions in the classic book by Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

I did a blind contour drawing of a hanging plant several years ago that I really like.  I love how it conveys the feeling of an organic descending form without the fussy detail.

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More recently, on a trip to New Mexico, I stayed in a home where bleached animal skulls of various types and sizes decorated the outdoor patio space.  I really enjoyed photographing and then doing blind contour drawings of this cow's skull:

I love how the contour drawing (done from a side angle) captures the weird shapes and energetic lines of the skull and teeth.

I also did a blind contour drawing of a large wooden bowl.  Simple, but I find it amusing that the shape isn't closed and the edges not connected.

I also drew a candle holder with interesting Aztec-type figures.

I've learned that the most interesting blind contour drawings are of complex objects.  If the object's outlines are too simple there is not much room for eccentric lines and shapes to develop.

For the past week or so I've been working on the design for the next tapestry in my Mary series, a piece on the Mater Dolorosa (sorrowing mother) theme that is one traditional type of Mary icon.  The icon I've been using as my source for previous tapestries depicts a placid Madonna.

I needed a face that expressed grief and sorrow.  Lacking any handy sources, I made a face and snapped a quick selfie.  I deliberately posed looking downward.  Possibly the most unattractive selfie ever!  Go ahead and laugh!

Then I made a quick and loose sketch of the selfie face, adding the iconic veil.  I was eager to plug this image into an overall composition I had in mind so I worked fast and didn't belabor the sketch.

I don't want to overstate this, but this is possibly the loosest, most expressive drawing I've ever done. Maybe all that low-stakes blind contour practice recently loosened me up. Maybe I did the sketch quickly enough that I didn't give myself a chance to get all tight and nervous about drawing.

Today I tried another version, also based on a selfie, with open eyes this time, and the head tilted slightly the other way.

This one I labored over a bit more, and it shows.  Not sure yet which one I'll use in the piece.  Back to the studio. . . .

Have you ever experimented with blind contour drawing?  What was it like for you?