watercooler crows - 2023 10 18

 


I shot this sequence of crows drinking from the water bucket during the drought last summer. I just happened to be up on the front porch for a coffee break and saw the crows were also taking a break and getting a drink.


The only way to for me to get a good feeling from a drawing is to be drawing enough that my hand feels relaxed and my eye has some sense of how what I am seeing can be re-visualized as a mark on the paper. When I am starting drawing after a period away from my art desk, there is always this strange feeling about making the drawing. An internal question - will I be able to make a drawing that I like?


Making a drawing takes patience and continuous learning. I can start anywhere, I'm still not going to know where things are going to end up. The more I do it, the more comfortable I get, the more relaxed I am as I sit down to draw. Any given drawing is going to teach me how it needs to be rendered, what it needs me to figure out so I can make the translation. Any picture reference is going to reveal to me what I need to know, what it is going to show me, about something that I don't have words for, in the moment I am making the drawing. 

When we are driven to create, and our resources and scope are constrained by necessity, we just have to find a way to make the most of what we have. 

Tonight I can't say I am particularly happy with the results of my drawings as artistic objects. However, I can say I am particularly happy that I mustered the energy, focus, materials and supplies to do a little drawing this evening.

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