moment 20: without words

The ramifications of silence and meditation have been on my mind lately.

The global events of course play into this mindset. I am more conscious of worldly affairs only because of my adopted boy, Brendan. Those typical parental feelings of protection and security overwhelmed me without warning. They took me by surprise.

I am surprised they took me by surprise. I should have known the emotions would flood over — radically change my perspective.
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In particular the crisis in Japan plays in my head. What began as a traumatic natural disaster spiraled into a human-generated chaos.
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Ironically the sketch posted today unintentionally echoes a haiku I wrote earlier in the week. Just noticed this while posting the illustration a few moments ago.

Silence can weigh down
the tongue with a loss for words.
Spring shifts forward.
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For some reason this sketch took me three days to complete—even though I formulated the idea during last week. Distractions of the baby and grading papers over the school break played heavy into the delay. Primarily, the image of the small blossom took the longest to form. I kept staring at the borders of the torn paper after they were inked onto the page. For two days nothing worked from the catalog of possibilities. Until a strong cup of stale, decaf coffee this morning. Odd how taste factors into the creation process.

Pens: Micron 005, BR, 03

moment 19: Waiting for the Moon

Pens: Micron 005, BR, 03, 05

moment 18: fold-out

 
After a long absence, found time to sketch last night. The baby was fed and we were in a surprising, unexpected lull of the evening. Usually I do not draw with someone else in the room—feel a pressure to perform a well-crafted piece in a moment's notice; the internal critic's voice echos in the head strongly at such times.

Time to concentrate and develop a new habit of drawing at least once a week.


Pens: Micron 005, BR, 03, 05

moment 17: thinking of crows 02

Cannot stop thinking of the motioning of crows. As words across a page. Expressions, blurring notions of thought. Crows as Blackbirds as Ravens as Grackles. Mediators between God and Elijah in the desert. Messengers for Odin. And too, on the visual level, ink smears across the page; highly textured lines. Want to navigate my drawing style closer to a expressionistic attitude, abstraction of reality on one level—yet, heightening the realism on another. Merge of oppositions.

moment 16: thinking of crows

A hasty sketch—self with abstracted scratches. Wanted to find the energy of crows in flight, rather than a scientific, detailed drawing of the birds themselves. Over the course of the next few days I plan to experiment with more symbolic abstractions, similar to Leonard Baskin’s etchings, but in my case the pen will be a milkweed wand cut and trimmed to resemble a pen-nib. Hopefully the sketches will contain the scratching textures of quills and early reed pens—a rough energy that mimics the notions of blackbirds and grackles collectively.

Pens: Prismcolor 005, 05, BR