Before and After

Ten weeks ago, I walked into Art 131—Introduction to Drawing, one of the first college classes I’d taken in 25 years. I was nervous, both about being in a classroom again, and also because for all of my very vocal enjoyment of art and a general sense that I was somewhat creative, I have never been very confident in my drawing ability. I do fairly well at Pictionary, and can create a reasonable likeness of most cartoon characters, but to draw something real from observation? This is the primary reason that most of my artistic endeavors tend toward collage or abstract designs.

No more. I was finally committed.

The first day of class was spent learning about supplies—the difference between vine charcoal and compressed, what erasers and paper to buy, what kind of portfolio we’d need—so we didn’t have to face our skills, or lack of them, that day. But that changed quickly. When we walked in the second day, the teacher (a wonderful guide named Vicki Lynn Wilson) had filled the center of the room with a giant still life: a mannequin in roller skates, boxes and vases, an umbrella, a large wicker headboard and piles of other . . . stuff. We set up our easels, opened up our shiny, new drawing supplies, and Vicki gave us the entire class period to do an uninstructed drawing. No rules, no help. Just an hour and a half in a quiet room to draw what we saw. She wasn’t being mean; she wanted to gauge the skills we brought to her class.

It was absolutely nerve-wracking. I fussed with my supplies and readjusted my easel for a full five minutes just to delay putting pencil to paper. And  it got worse from there. I didn’t know where to start, how to start, which tool to use. I stared at the still life and sketched. Stared some more and erased what I had drawn. Lurching, fumbling, I somehow got through the time until Vicki asked us to stop. When I looked at my drawing, here’s what I saw.

I was miserable. The drawing confirmed what I already believed: that I didn’t know how to draw. Mercifully, Vicki collected our drawings to keep until the end of the term. I’m sure she knew we’d be tempted to destroy them. I sure wanted to.

Fortunately, things got better. Over the next ten weeks, we learned how to do observational drawing in stages. We worked through each of the elements of design,  learning about line and composition before moving on to perspective,  shading and value. We worked in white charcoal on black paper, black charcoal on brown paper. Eventually we learned color. Week by week we built on previous skills, bringing in our drawings for the class to critique. I became familiar with the tattoo artist who worked with detailed precision, the grandmother and high school teacher who drew images from her home, the  young man who asked intriguing questions and was uniquely drawn to color. I felt connected to them somehow because I saw so much of their art. It felt like I’d seen something of their soul.

Which I had. And week after week, they’d seen mine.

For our final project, we were given free reign. We were to draw objects that were meaningful to us and said something about who were were. We could use any color paper or any techniques. We could work in black and white or in color. I decided to do a drawing about living my life as an explorer. I picked my favorite traveling boots, the leather satchel I found at a market in Italy and which I now use as my school bag, and the journals I kept on a study abroad trip in college. I threw in my favorite fountain pen and and amethyst crystal I’ve kept on my desk for ages. I set up my still life on a table in my laundry room and worked on it for about twelve hours over the course of ten days.

Today, we hung our artwork for the final class critique. This is what I pinned to the wall:

So what did I learn?

I don’t have to figure everything out by myself.

I suppose, in theory, I could have learned much of this on my own from reading books or watching countless YouTube videos. But then again, I got to be 50 years old without ever actually learning how to draw, so there you go. I’m sure it is possible to learn through trial and error, but having someone else share their expertise with you, provide you with structure and ideas, and give you feedback in real time is priceless. It takes a certain amount of courage, energy and resources to expose yourself and your work to a teacher, and even to other students, but as it turns out, this commitment is amply rewarded. Resources abound. There are people out there who want nothing more than to help me.

Break big ideas into smaller ideas.

I figured out pretty quickly that my problem with my first, uninstructed drawing was that I was trying to do too much at the same time. It was like having a pile of building materials—bricks and cement and 2×4′s and nails—and mixing them all together to build a house instead of focusing on them one at a time. Start first with overall composition. What do I want in the picture and where? Then add the shading and the detail. You don’t have to do everything at once.

Take the time.

This was, far and away,  the most important lesson. It takes time to learn how to do something. I spent four to ten hours on my drawing homework each week, and at the beginning of each drawing, it looked like crap. In fact, it looked like crap for about the first two hours I worked. If I weren’t willing to spend at least two and a half  hours when I sat down to work on a project, I would never know what I could do. Yet if I sat with it long enough, working with  patience and trust, I was inevitably surprised by the objects that began to appear beneath my pencil. Honestly, it began to feel like magic. There I would be, sitting in my laundry room with my hands covered in charcoal, James Taylor crooning on my iPod, and suddenly beautiful things emerged from my paper. A jug of tulips, a drinking glass, the weave of a basket. I’d check my watch and hours had passed in what felt like twenty minutes. This was the payoff.

I’ll say it again: learning something new takes time. Mastering something takes a lot of time. They say that it takes about 10,000 hours of deep, concentrated practice to gain mastery, and I think being willing to spend this kind of time trumps talent any day. The trick is to pick something that you don’t mind spending 10,000 hours doing so that the time spent is, in itself, the reward. I’m thinking that being able to make art is worth a 10,000 hour investment in my life.  I’ve already started. Between my three classes this term, I’ve probably spent 300 hours on art since January.

Only 9,700 hours to go.

I can’t wait.

A Still Life of a Still Life

I’m so excited about the assignment in my painting class this week. We are supposed to paint a still life of objects that somehow represent our lives. There weren’t many “rules” other than that there needed to be three or more items, one of which was some sort of photograph of ourselves.

I’ve always liked and admired still life paintings. In college, while on an overseas study abroad program in England and The Nederlands, I visited world-class museums for the first time–the National Gallery and the Tate in London, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. I was overwhelmed and in awe as I wandered in front of art by all the masters, but I developed a special place in my heart for still life paintings. I still have, hanging on my living room wall, the framed print of a Dutch still life I carted home in my suitcase thirty years ago. The artist was not well-known, and I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know his name. I do, however, see his still life almost every day of my life. I included a photograph of it at the start of this post, so now you’ve seen it too.

Traditionally, a still life, as you probably know, was an artistic depiction of commonplace items, either natural—such as flowers, fruit, shells, food, stones—or crafted—such as books, musical instruments, jewelry, vases, pipes or dishes.  Many of the items carried symbolic meaning and and the paintings themselves often served as a source of enrichment or focus of meditation. One particular subset of still lifes, called vanitas, included items that focused the viewer on the transitoriness of life. Images of human skulls, overripe fruit, wilting flowers, insects, hourglasses, and candles (sometimes with their flames extinguished) would serve as a meditation on the fact that, well, life is short.

There are many wonderful examples of still life paintings.. Here are a few:

One by Paul Cezanne. He called it Black Marble Clock, but I also see a coffee cup and the remains of a meal.

 

 

 

 

 

This one an example of a vanitas still life by Pieter Claesz. Notice the skull and timepiece.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another one by Picasso. I see a violin, a journal and some fruit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I set out to create a still life for my own painting, I went to my journal to think about what I wanted to create. In doing so, I had my answer.

Most mornings, I crawl out of bed in the dark. I stumble downstairs and nearly blind myself with the kitchen light so I can see to start the coffee maker. While it brews, I feed our dog, Abby, and take her for a brief walk down the street. She is almost as bleary-eyed as I am. By the time I return, my coffee is ready and I head for my favorite chair in the living room, a comfy wingback by the fireplace with an ottoman and everything. I light the fireplace, light a candle, and drop into my chair. I sip my coffee and pull out my black Moleskine journal and my favorite Waterman fountain pen. For the next half hour to 40 minutes, I write or sketch in my journal. Sometimes I’ll meditate, and sometimes, I’ll just sit quietly and listen to the whirr of the furnace, notice the smell of my coffee, or watch as the world outside my window lights up with pink sun. I am still. This is my still life.

It seems like such a little thing, really, a short time spent quieting my mind and my pace long enough to listen for the voice that tells me where I should go, what I should do. But this still life of mine is crucial for my sanity, my sense of contentment, and my confidence. Plus, I think my family notices that I’m less crabby after I’ve taken this time to breathe.

It was, therefore, a no-brainer to decide to paint a still life of my still life. I pulled together the necessary elements: coffee in a cup, a candle, my journal and fountain pen. I grabbed a couple of other objects that are also meaningful to me (see my blog post “The Symbols We Live”). I also included the picture of myself as my instructor requested. I draped a couple of table cloths over a box on my kitchen table and set up my little tableau. Doug was gracious enough to use his photographic skills to take a picture of my collection. Here is the result.

I love how this turned out and am excited to paint it. One of the most enjoyable parts of the whole project, however, was assembling the objects. A still life provides so much room for symbolism and metaphor, which makes it a perfect exercise for art journaling. Creating a personal still life and taking a photograph of it, even with a simple camera like the one in most cell phones, is an illuminating art journaling exercise. It’s creative, playful, and usually requires items that you already have around your house.

Try it for yourself. Make a still life of any aspect of your life. Maybe it’s how you like to cook, or your passion for golf or  water polo, or your role as a parent. Or, like me, you can do something to represent your own “still life.” Take a picture and print it out if you can. Paste it in your journal. You can spend a few minutes writing about the objects that appear in your arrangement. How do these objects speak to you? What are they saying?

Listen.

The Imagined Landscape: Portable Art Journaling

Traveling, as I’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks, always brings with it one basic question: How can I continue to make art away from home? I packed my art journal to bring with me, but had to be careful about how much I wanted to lug around in terms of art supplies. Solution? I threw in my favorite Sharpie fine point pens, a set of my new favorite markers,  and my new favorite book, Raw Art Journaling, by Quinn McDonald. Portable art is a very good thing. It gives me an opportunity to make do, to step away from all my paints and brushes and glues and mediums and work with what I have.

This week, I decided to try a version of an exercise from McDonald’s book she calls “The Imagined Landscape.” Rather than re-creating a visual landscape, this project urges you to explore an imaginary landscape of lines and curves, circles and shapes, colors or black and white spaces. Fortunately, I could work simply with only my art journal, using a pen, and my pencils. As McDonald says:

Your art can remind you of a song or a photograph. It can be a close-up or one part. Fill some spaces with color, leave other spaces empty. Put in dots or tiny circles in one part and bold lines in another. Draw a big curve and a line following the curve, then fill it with straight lines.”

The idea, at least for me, was to force myself to feel comfortable drawing lines that don’t have to “be” anything. They don’t have to represent anything. I can just put them down on the paper because they make me happy.

I decided to be brave and work directly on my journal page instead of on a separate piece of paper. Living dangerously, I know. I felt like I was running with scissors. Still, I gave myself permission to start out with pencil first, especially so I could play with places where they lines intersected each other. Based on McDonald’s examples, I also added little circles, which immediately seemed like pearls to me.

It occurred to me later that given the word “Landscape” in the description of the project, I automatically started out with my paper in “landscape”–or horizontal–position. After completing the pencil, however, I decided I preferred a vertical format. Once I was happy with my pencil lines, I went over them with a waterproof black pen. Mine happened to be a Pitt brand.

For my next step, I took a departure from the example McDonald gave in her book, a decision which I’m quite sure McDonald herself would have appreciated. While drawing, I found myself thinking about a poem by Lucille Clifton. The poem?

Things don’t fall apart. Things hold.

Lines connect in thin ways that last and last

And lives become generations made out of pictures and words just kept.

One of my favorite poems, and it’s themes–lines connecting, things holding–seemed to fit with my drawing, so I decided to include it in my imaginary landscape.

Now came the fun part. I pulled out my colored pencils to fill in my drawing. This really was just a grown-up version of a coloring book. I filled in all the spaces I wanted colored, leaving plenty of white space on the page. I also felt compelled to leave my “pearls” white, and shaded them just a bit.

This is when the magic started, because mine are watercolor colored pencils, truly one of the greatest inventions I have ever seen. After using them to draw or color an area on paper, you can go over them with a wet paintbrush and–like magic–they turn into watercolor paints. Even better, because when you are working in small, narrow areas, like those in my project, these pencils allow me to paint in a very precise way. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me.

Because I was traveling, I brought with me a special paintbrush, which you can see in the photo at the top of this post. It is a hollow plastic tube with a brush at the end. You fill the hollow tube with water, which can be squeezed down into the brush when needed. The brush can also be capped when not in use.

So, the final, very satisfying, step in my project was to use my magic brush to paint water over my colored pencil. Because I only used small amounts of water, it worked well when painting directly onto my journal pages. Here’s what I ended up with, a collaborative effort between Quinn McDonald’s book, Lucille Clifton’s poem, some great watercolor pencils, and my imagination.

In Defense of Scribbling

I couldn’t resist. This week, during my daily reading of the comics pages, I came across one of Richard Thompson’s Cul de Sac strips that was so good, so smart, I had to cut it out. Even more, I decided I needed to share it in this blog.

The story line is that Alice  and her brother Petey are trying to decide on costumes for Halloween. Alice is having trouble choosing, but Petey had already decided that the most terrifying thing he could possibly be is a blank sheet of paper. When I read it, I laughed out loud. He’s absolutely, completely right. Very little paralyzes me more than the blank page.

What was even better, though, was Alice’s response to Petey’s insight.

She scribbled! She took out her crayons (which she conveniently keeps under her pillow) and she scribbled on Petey’s blank page. Not only that, she scribbled a happy face, which could be the subject of a completely different blog post. Still, she defeated the intimidating, looming, scariness of a blank piece of paper with five seconds and the strategic use of a child’s toy.

I need to remember this. When in doubt, just scribble or doodle. Fill in the blank space. Not only does it take away the power of the blankness by rendering it no longer blank, it provides other benefits as well. Studies show that sketching and doodling, rather than being a waste of time, actually improves our comprehension and our creative thinking. Double bonus! Less terrifying and more effective.

I recently watched a TED talk by Sunni Brown, the author of a book called Gamestorm, called “Doodlers, Unite!”, who weighed in on the subject. It’s just the sort of idea that flies in the face of what we all think to be true and isn’t. Brown defines doodling as “making spontaneous marks to help yourself think.”  There are many benefits to doodling:

People who doodle when they’re exposed to verbal information retain more of that information than their non-doodling counterparts. We think doodling is something you do when you lose focus, but in reality, it is a preemptive measure to stop you from losing focus. Additionally, it has a profound effect on creative problem-solving and deep information processing.

 

All this from a blank piece of paper and a crayon, or a pencil, or a colorful marker. Maybe we should encourage students to doodle in class. Or provide pads of paper and crayons to participants of an office meeting.

So what did I do? I opened my art journal to a scary blank page, pulled out three markers in beautiful colors, and I scribbled. My initial goal was just to cover the whole page. But this time, as opposed to the many times I scribble on the back of an envelope while talking on the phone, I paid attention to where my mind went while I was scribbling. It was fascinating. I noticed some of the shapes that I particularly liked. I felt inclined to color in certain sections. I began to understand the wisdom of stashing a few crayons under my pillow. This simple activity felt like a jump start to a more formal creative process if I felt compelled to keep going, and I’m sure I will.

I stopped, though. I decided I’d spend a few minutes first and share the joys of scribbling with you.  Give it a try. See what happens. I dare you.

The Symbols We Live

At it’s most basic level, a symbol is an image which stands in for something else. We interact with symbols all the time. When most of us see this:

we know to look for a train. When we need to find a restroom, we look for this symbol:

Most of us, when we hear the word “heart,” don’t immediately think of the anatomically correct cardiac muscle that pumps blood through our bodies. Instead, we probably imagine something that looks like this:

which stands for lots of abstract ideas, including love, compassion, and Valentine’s Day.

Symbols give us a shortcut to communicate ideas that are more complicated or abstract. They provide a tangible way to interact with intangible ideas. They are images layered with meaning. As Thomas Carlyle wrote:

In a symbol there is concealment and yet revelation: here therefore, by silence and by speech acting together, comes a double significance. In the symbol proper… the Infinite is made to blend itself with the Finite, to stand visible, and as it were, attainable there. By symbols, accordingly, is man guided and commanded, made happy, made wretched.”

I think Carlyle is right: silence mixed with speech, the infinite combined with the finite. This is not a surprise to anyone, I’m sure. We’ve been trained to look for symbolism since our language arts classes in junior high school. Lately, however, I’ve been particularly interested in personal symbols, which are images layered with personal rather than universal meaning. We may all halt when we approach a red hexagon, a nearly universal symbol for “stop.” But I want to explore which images contain or represent significant ideas or concepts that are uniquely important to me.

This week, I was reading The Soul’s Palette: Drawing on Art’s Transformative Powers for Health and Well-Being by Cathy Malchiodi, a pioneer in the field of art therapy, who argues that making art may be as important to physical and spiritual health as balanced nutrition and regular exercise. Creative expression allows us to find guidance, soothe emotional pain, and renew energy. One way to do this is to pay attention to our personal symbols.

It’s easier to find personal symbols than you may think. You literally have them at your fingertips. As Malchiodi writes,

Each of us consciously or unconsciously chooses to have visual symbols–images and objects–in our environments. We are all drawn to certain colors, shapes, forms, patterns, and textures in our environment or may consciously place them around us in decorating our home . . . [They] have importance to us, remind us of a person, memory, or event, or simply give us pleasure when looking at them. These visual symbols tell a lot about what and how we value images.

She called our living spaces an “environmental collage,” which I think is great. Everytime we paint a room, hang a picture, place on object on a table, we are creating spaces that reflect what we value, and “stand in for” what brings us joy, pleasure and inspiration. Acknowledging these images gives us insight into our own creativity.

Touring Your Environment

Looking at my house as my own environmental collage, I got out my camera and decided to take a tour of my house. Room by room, I looked for the objects, textures, and colors that seemed special to me, the things that give me a thrill or sense of comfort or pleasure just looking at them. I spent about 30 minutes and took 77 photographs. Here’s a selection of what I found:

Birds

It turns out that I love birds. Although I already knew this on some level, I was surprised to see how many images of bird are in several rooms of my house. Some were gifts, some I purchased for myself, some I’ve had for two or three years, some I’ve had for twenty years. All of them, however, continue to give me joy.

Flowers

It’s not surprising to find flowers in a home, or in artwork. They are, after all, beautiful. But I really, really love flowers. I buy flowers for myself so regularly that it has become pointless for my husband to send them to me on special occasions. But I also like botanical prints of flowers. I am so soothed by the floral designs of artists such as William Morris and Charles Mackintosh that I bought not one, but two calendars so I could have their art on my walls. And I also discovered the flower on the glass piece done by my friend Laurel Wilder.

Shiny Things

I like glass. This is not something I necessarily understood about myself until I started to notice how much I was drawn to shiny, translucent objects. It hit home when I saw how many of my treasured objects were made of glass, including the glass piece I found in a gallery this summer. Many had meaning for other reasons. The starfish has always been a favorite symbol, but I noticed that the one on my bathroom counter is made of glass. I don’t have much in the way of awards, but the one I got from the college where I worked was a glass apple, and I have always loved its shape and shine. (Plus, I was interested to notice that I had placed it next to one of my favorite Olivia books.) My sister gave me the little Swarovski crystal pen and inkstand years ago and it sits on my desk where I see it every day. And glass mixed with fire is just plain magic.

and finally…

Things I Love Because I Love Them

There is no common logic for these. I can’t tell you why I’m drawn to hedgehogs and sea turtles and starfish and Olivia the Pig. I just know that they make me happy to look at them. Plus, they provide surefire birthday or Christmas gift ideas. Also, I don’t love cooking, but I am much happier about it if I can use my Staub cast iron enameled pot that is a gorgeous, deep red. And I write better if I’m using my cobalt blue fountain pen and on the creamy pages of my Moleskine notebook.

These are only 19 of the 77 photographs I took, and I’ll spare you the rest. The point, after all, is that these are the images that are meaningful to me. However, I encourage you to spend some time in your home and pay attention to the objects and images that make up your environmental collage. Notice if there are trends or common categories. If nothing else, you will be reminded that the spaces we build around us–our homes, offices, cars, workshops–are a reflection of our creative selves. Even beyond that, you might get an idea of the imagery  that you can incorporate into other sorts of artistic expression–poetry, prose, painting, collage. I’m excited to spend some time journaling about the images I discovered in my own home.

But that can wait for now. It’s time to go buy some more flowers.

 

 

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