Creative Works - 2025 01 24

 

Acrylic ink and brush, glass pen, pen and ink on paper 9" x 6"

Last evening my neighbour, and friend, Louise, came over for a drawing session. For many years we have passed each other on the street, this was our first time sitting down together to draw.

I laid out a selection of papers, brushes, graphite, glass pens, ink pens, and acrylic inks on the dining room table. We used a collection of glass shot glasses for mixing ink washes and tones. 

We started at 7 pm and finally wrapped up at 10 pm. 

I was surprised by the drawing I made. It is a combination of techniques I have been exploring since I first started drawing in my late teens. A descriptive, dynamic contour line giving a sense of the edge of form, giving definition for a form to emerge. Symbolic markings of triangles, circles and short lines. Organic tracings of splash marks, their reach extending into exploratory threads. Tonal washes that give substance to shapes and definition between the emergence of shapes and movement from the ground.

As we were drawing, we were talking about what it means to be put time into our creative works. How the time we were spending, in the moment of making our drawings, was antithetical to societal forces that had positioned us for a lifetime of solitary labour, of isolation, of disconnection from critical social connectivity. I was sharing my concept for social ecologies of learning. How we can conceive of our social relationships, our social lives, as an ecology of life that is as necessary to our survival as the biological connections that sustain life.

Without thought or design, I picked up a glass pen, I mixed an ink wash, I let drops of inky water splash onto the paper. I traced lines, used a brush to allow the ink wash to flow across the surface. I drew ascending and descending patterns of short lines to bring dynamic amplitude to the pen line. I drew triangles with dots of energy reaching out into the field. Each layer was added in response to the previous layers and tracings. 

Eventually there was nothing left to add. The drawing told me it was done. Our conversation had reached a good stopping point. I felt strengthened, emboldened and inspired by the experience. I felt hope. 

I don't know exactly how this all works. I just know that it is important and it is the antidote. We are creative organisms. In our creativity we find solutions to the problems we create for ourselves. We are evolving. We do learn.