A Casting of Stones

moment 20: without words

2011-03-18T07:11:00.001-07:00

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

2011-03-06T08:56:00.001-08:00

Pens: Micron 005, BR, 03, 05

moment 18: fold-out

2011-02-26T11:35:00.001-08:00

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

2010-10-24T09:03:00.001-07:00

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

2010-09-26T15:32:00.001-07:00

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

moment 15: 17 syllables

2010-08-22T16:32:00.001-07:00

After a long summer of teaching college-level English courses, I found an afternoon hour to sketch— and to rediscover myself.

Spent most of my last few weeks grading papers, creating lectures, researching new opinions—

Pens: Prismcolor 01, 03, 05, BR

moment 14 || two stones and one blossom

2010-05-31T16:48:00.001-07:00

Now is the time for gathering stones. My father and I scraped these up from the side of his garage a few days ago. A crate's worth of rubble, various sizes. Each one a heavy weight in the the hands.

At one point, we even found a large chunk of a fossilized shell, a fractured ammonite, Jurrasic life transferred to stone.

Pens: Micron 005, BR; Staedtler 03; Prismacolor 03, Cool Grey 30%, Cool Grey 70%

moment 13 || roadside sign

2010-05-24T07:15:00.001-07:00

Last few weeks have been a blur of mundane academic activity: grade papers, grade final projects, create exams, grade exams, post grades, turn in end-of-term-paperwork, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
I failed to post this drawing from earlier in the month. Despite this oversight I plan to take time over this week to catch up with myself.

Pens: Micron 005, BR; Faber-Castell 01, 03

moment 12 || planner with unfinished sketch

2010-05-01T12:59:00.001-07:00

What to add? Another self portrait, a human figure, a tree?
The emptiness begs to be filled with something.

Not very decisive today.

Ironically, this afternoon I plan to watch a modern version of the Shakesperean drama Hamlet and watch him squirm with indecisiveness: "To be. Or not to be."

Pens: Micron 005; Faber-Castell 01

from the past || 2005

2010-04-22T11:09:00.001-07:00

A rare idle moment: revisiting older images posted on my website: A Gathering of Stones.

from the past || 2005

2010-04-22T11:01:00.001-07:00

A rare idle moment: revisiting older images posted on my website: A Gathering of Stones.

In the backyard we placed a statuary figure of Saint Francis holding a green mirror ball. Back in 2005 we scattered wild flower seeds behind him to attract butterflies and small birds. Oftentimes the resulting yellow and white blossoms resulted in the effect of a divine aura, a sense of a natural expression of holiness attributed to a garden icon.

moment 11 || empty interior

2010-04-20T16:48:00.001-07:00

For an hour I waited at a local coffee house while the opticians finalized repairing my glasses in the same block of stores—and I was caught without my sketchbook and without my camera—resorted sketching the empty cafe, on paper within my planner, with colored markers.

My intentions were to find people, but instead was greeted by lonely chairs. Most of the clientele sat outdoors in full sun. Their voices mumbled through the store glass front where I sat in the shade, still in my casual work clothes.

moment 10 || self as book

2010-04-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

Another self portrait-sketch, another book. In this case, the image follows my damaged sketch book: broken spine, missing folios of pages, the glue-binding cracking. The book becomes a symbol of my personal drawing process—

The theme approaches the notion of identity, the realization of the creative potential; the flower represents the Ideal, the self portrait showing a sense of Actuality, of Reality viewing the Ideal.

I love considering such abstractions of meaning in art and poetry. It only makes sense: the process of discovering another artist’s intentions helps me gather stronger insights into my own work and offers new concepts to emulate.
Pens: Micron 005, 01, 03; Faber-Castell BR

Points of departure

2010-04-07T09:49:00.000-07:00

A new article was posted by the Van Gogh museum regarding The Bedroom. The author, Fleur Roos Rosa de Carvalho, offers more details about Vincent Van Gogh's intentions with the work, showing examples from his letters and sketches from 1888: Points of departure.

I greatly admire this ink sketch. Small hints of the artist's personality exist within the domestic scene: his hat and jacket resting beside the bed in the background, two paintings on the far wall leaning forward, the table set for a still-life. All of these elements alter or are removed from the final painted version—here they offer a strong sense of stability, cohesion for the full room.

One can easily step into the sketch, become a part of the whole image.

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moment 09 || Student Poetry Slam

2010-04-03T15:56:00.000-07:00

Recently, students performed a Poetry Slam at Lone Star College-CyFair campus, where I teach. This is the first time I sketched from a constantly changing room of diverse people and diverse moods. In life-drawing classes, the change of a model's pose is expected and predictable—here, movements were erratic and sudden. Without warning a poet would finish their piece and a new voice would be called to perform.

Unfortunately, from a sketch-perspective, the room stood out as a typical conference area: bland walls, dull colors, little decor. Fortunately the improvised stage did have a dark purple fabric backdrop with a basic circle print of interlocking curves and circles. Likewise, posters from previous slams were pinned to the wall as well to give a more "bohemian" appearance.

The two students I drew were selected at random; the male figure because I admired his cap: wrinkled lines and a row of odd-shaped circles. His shock of hair pulled out from under, as if struggling to free itself from the confines of the fabric. The female figure, on the other hand, I wanted to capture the print pattern in her dress, a dominant image of a branch of flowering orchids, then a menagerie of blossoms slowly covering the hemline, shifting the dress into a new color tone. The dress merged with the plants arranged in front of the stage, blurring her form at the base.

moment 08 || falling into sleep

2010-03-27T10:30:00.000-07:00

The actual sensation of falling into sleep puzzles me; the fact we willingly suspend conscious thought, that we are required to slow down the body’s functions in order to remain healthy and active in the waking-world, on the surface, this specification seems impractical. The last few nights in fact I have attempted to capture the exact moment when the mind lies in a midpoint: half in a state of awareness, half in the dream-world—all in order so I can later capture it in more creative terms. Perhaps in the end, recording this exact moment is an exercise in futility.

Of course it can only be accurately described in creative terms; the sensation is the same as pulling on a heavy, long, winter coat; one slips the body into layers of clothing just as slipping into warm waters: one arm, then a shoulder, then the other arm, wrapping up the body into another definition of self.

This all started after discovering an artist’s web log from Denmark: Ea Ejersbo. Others may find this obvious, but I never thought to treat my sketchbook from the standpoint that the double page spread is one sheet for drawing; I always maintained the individual sheets with the perimeters defined by the book’s gutter. If you look at her Flickr portfolio, she uses this technique frequently, with advantageous results.

The illustration posted this week follows the same logic and shows the concept of falling into sleep. That partial limbo when the mind shifts into a new definition. A new territory.

Pens: Micron 005, 01, 02, BR; Faber-Castell BR

moment 07 || memory

2010-03-21T10:36:00.000-07:00

Pens: Micron 005, 01, 02, 03

The bedroom is sorely missed

2010-03-18T07:16:00.001-07:00

Restoration of the Vincent Van Gogh painting "The Bedroom" began recently at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The adminstrators made it possible to view progress and see the technology behind restorations. Many blogs have begun as well discussing the importance of the piece and public opinon.

The bedroom is sorely missed

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Full details can be seen through the museum itself:
http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/blog/slaapkamergeheimen/en/.

moment 06 || swallowing the landscape 02

2010-03-12T18:19:00.000-08:00

Pens: Micron 005, 01, BR

moment 06 || swallowing down the landscape

2010-03-08T12:10:00.000-08:00

After three hours of lectures this morning, I took time out to catch up with my drawings, and relax for a short while before falling back into grading.

And, yes, I will return to the book motif in the near future; however, today I wanted to establish a horizontal landscape with a sense of layered clouds and my persistent crescent moon low on the horizon.

Pens: Micron 005, 01, 03, BR

moment 05 || choice A or choice B

2010-02-26T16:38:00.000-08:00

A. Horizontal

When I first sketched out this illustration I intended the view to be orientated as an 'ironic' horizontal view, to emphasize the broken binding in the book. After scanning it, and a moment of reflection, I now wonder if it should be presented like this instead:

B. Vertical

—so the vertical slant of the figure gains focus rather than the book itself...

Pens: Micron 005, 01, 02, BR

moment 04 || thinking of spring

2010-02-21T09:42:00.000-08:00

A moment meditating on another season. On the other hand, when I first sketched this out in pencil I felt as if bodily I moved into a sense of slumber—the time chimed after eleven at night, so of course the mind will wander into slight realms of fancy.

A far contrast from this morning when the layers of ink were applied—the stereo blared latin jazz: Eddie Palmieri to be exact, his album El Rmbero del Piano. Something caffeinated to force a sense of rhythm in my hand—keeping the pen strokes even when creating textures. In fact, the music helped motivate the theme of one's self merging with the background landscape of grass, merging with the inner shadows of the crease of the book—a concept illustrating a transformation of energy: spiritual and creative.

Pens: Micron 005, 01, 02, BR

moment 03 || my life as a book: self portrait

2010-02-12T16:09:00.000-08:00

A continuation of my book theme. While building the initial pencil sketch last night, a cold front moved across Houston. Darker clouds rose up across my neighbors' houses and slowly covered our own lawn. In a manner of speaking, this influenced the intial concept, but with a contrasting notion: showing myself outside in early autumn months, meditating on cloudscapes.

Inking in the pages always presents a fun challenge. I want the picture to capture a sense of the bulk of the paper, just like the older hand-stitched volumes found in the rare antique book shops. With this in mind, I purposely did not link up the bottom lines with the left and right hand sides of the book. This offers a highlight across the corners—and enables heavier, textured lines.

Pens: Micron 005, 01, 02, 03, BR

moment 02 || thinking of magritte

2010-02-06T11:33:00.000-08:00

—in a manner of speaking that is. I always admired René Magritte's intentions behind the infamous painting: "Ceci n'est pas une pomme"— Google the keywords "magritte, apple" and various versions of this painting will appear. The main theme of the piece is reality versus image. That is, a painting is a replication of reality, an illusion of reality—but the painting of an apple is not a physical apple; nor is the photograph of an apple in reality a true apple, it is a representation of the specific fruit itself.

My recent drawing "image || reality" is a brief nod to the painter's original discussion of "what is realty?" In this case what we have is a representation of a real apple next to the obvious representation of an apple in a book represented on a web log. Circles within cirles within circles.

I used my standard Micron pens, utilizing a new journal I purchased last year, but never opened until recently. The book is a Moleskine product, a slender 5" x 8" variety. The paper responds well to both ink and graphite. I can see why the company has been around for a number of years. Supposedly Van Gogh and Picasso themselves owned these type of sketchbooks for their quick experiments.

—and yes, I do have a notebook fetish. I collect blank books and horde them in my supply closet for months on end until the need for a fresh perspective. In an odd manner, each sketchbook produces a different mode of drawing, creates a different mood and thought process for my hands. Due to the horizontal layout of the pages for the Moleskine, I hope to shift my 'boxed' portrait style to a wider landscape approach, allowing for a cinematic detailing.

moment 01 || thinking out loud

2010-02-01T10:01:00.000-08:00

Since 2005 I made a conscious effort to sketch an idea out on paper at least once a week, barring any interruptions from family, relocation, school lectures, hurricane winds, and personal reading assignments. Understandably, consequences and circumstances play into the equation in more ways than I care to admit.

Since 2010 however, I re-committed myself to the idea—specially after last year's non-productive period of only five images—and the realization in order to keep my sanity, sketching and writing act as cornerstones of relaxing and de-stressful energies.

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This latest image shows a new exploration of elements appearing in my journal: drawings of books. Not the average paperback mind you, rather the heavy, dusty, leather-bound tome which is vanishing from the concepts of our culture. As these become more rare in society I am more apt to use them as icons or symbols to express what is shifting in our (sub)conscious thoughts.

Dream logic will always appear in my work, from small doodles to larger full-scale projects; this is my style: utilizing the psychological notions from the everyday, waking experience.

The next step: increase the production. Advance the chain of pages. Explore the possibilities and various potentials. Motion forward—