jennyarntzen.art

  Sleeping Rescue - pencil, pen and ink, 8 1/2 x 11 on paper Eddy was asleep on the bed. Gripped by a moment of optimism and energy, I made a combined pencil drawing of blind contour and observed contour lines. My perception of proportion is almost dyslexic, so I need to work back and forth across the subject to pull in and out of the shapes to get something approximate of my observed subject. The pencil drawing sat for a few days while I waited to figure out what to do next. Yesterday I decided to try something with ink. I mixed in equal measure, black and raw umber ink. In five shot glasses I spooned one tablespoon of water for each. The first shot glass received one drop each of black and raw umber. The second shot glass received two drops, the third, three drops, to the fifth shot glass, which received five drops each of black and raw umber ink. To look at the row of shot glasses, I could not see the difference in the intensity of the colour in each glass. They all looked the s...

  Self portrait - pen and ink, pencil crayon, crayon on paper - 9" x 12" - blind contour - 2014 06 22 Over decades I have practiced self portraiture as a process to make meaning and to practice and explore drawing styles and technique. Blind contour has fascinated me from the beginning. First, it astounds me how accurately the contour lines convey a likeness. Second, the distortions of lines flying off in space add a psychological dimension to the portrait - funny, curious, revealing of something not easily articulated in any other way. During the 2014 series, I was determined to treat the drawing with serious shading and tone, no matter what the drawing from the blind contour exercise looked like.  The process of making the blind contour is an exercise of close looking at my own face, looking deeply into my own eyes, an objective study of my hair, my nose, my mouth and my chin. It is a process of diving into the indoctrination of a lifetime of dictates to be 'feminine...

  Pen and highlighter pen on paper 6" x 10" A drawing of my rescue dog, Adele. A sketch in highlighter pen on paper. The paper is ripped from a notebook. The drawing of Adele is tight to the lower left hand corner. The background is 'unfinished' or untouched. The background is filled with possibility. My eye is drawn to the picture of Adele and the expression in her eyes, "What is she looking at?". My eye is also drawn to the unmarked space. The possibilities of emptiness that align my heart and spirit with the potential energy of eternity. This drawing was made one evening sitting at the dining table with my friends, talking about life and working on our own creative projects. A few of thoughts about artistic production and sharing our work. What is value? What is worth doing? What is worth sharing? First, I am remembering our lessons in photo documenting our work from art school. We were taught to be very precise and accurate in our photo-documentation. We...

  Graphite, pencil crayons on mylar - 9" x 12" I am grateful to my neighbourhood cats who sit long enough for me to record their image. They serve as a worthy subject to process and channel the zeitgeist of this moment through drawing. The cat is wary. It is alert. There is a timeline of destruction tracing across the horizon. We are city folk, living in our coastal urban village. The cats have agency, they have character, they have skills. The cats are my teachers.

  Highlighter pen, pen and ink, pencil crayon on paper - 81/2" x 10" Last evening we sat at the dining room table, me and my friend, Louise. She was practicing drawing with brush and watercolour in shades of grey. I was playing with patterns and sequence in shades of blue, green and violet. As we worked on our drawings we talked about our week, the latest developments, embarrassments, frustrations and victories. I shared new songs, playing imperfectly to convey melodies, lyrics and imagery floating up to the surface in response to life events. My pattern making was also imperfect. There are errors of repetition and sequence. I couldn't remember exactly how the key design worked so I improvised my own based on what I remembered. I would make structural rules for myself and then, lost in conversation, forget what they were and break the rule. Noticing I had broken the rule and thus set a new rule, I would shrug and continue drawing, curious to see how the drawing was going ...

  Pen and highlighter on paper - 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" This drawing started out as an unruly grid of dots and emerged as a continuous knotted line with a spiral pattern drawing us into the dark inner reaches of the doorway. 

  Graphite, pencil crayon and soft pastel on paper - 9" x 12" Neighbour cat does not know if I am friend or foe. She is crouching to make herself small, but also bunching her muscles ready to make a leap, if necessary.