I was addicted to LINE since I was about 5 years old.
Dragging pencil line across rougher art paper is a sensual drag. It was the pleasure of friction. I felt this very young.
I always imagined that my veins hold fluid graphite.
In recent years, the camera made me lazy. I’m a ‘good-eye’ with heavy art training in classical style. And my favorite camera is the Lumix in Sepia tones. Those create great mood shots.
But the camera cannot do LINE that excites me. I’ve seen old camera prints that come very very close to the spontaneous artistry of the hand-only artist. Ansel Adams comes to mind for that category of sincere sensuality through the beauty the machine.
The drawing in this blog took about 10 seconds. Maybe a little more. I’m definitely not up to my professional speed which is much faster when I’m “warmed up.” I was self-taught to sketch on the New York City subways and buses. People move quickly in New York. Children move quickly everywhere! And I spent years at barns drawing horses. There I could capture horse movement by putting a large wad of hay down. That horse stayed more or less in the same position for at least 20 munching minutes.
In Quick-sketch mode, such as the image above, the point is to make something seem fluid yet formed enough to make out figures in action. In order to be effective, I had to study anatomy for years and still need to.
When I hear people talk about how they wish they could have been artists, my fear strikes up! I know the ‘call’ of the talent and it’s depression if not in use. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Sure…many people are artistic but not everyone is an artist. For me, I would go mad if I didn’t do art. Part of that reason is because being an artist means I work out of my inner depth of brain: my ID. That’s the source of creation in the brain or overall psyche and also the place of shamans and madness. Madness because reality isn’t fixed in the ID. Like the dreams we project in our mind at night…time and reality are fluid.
I truly believe that God gifted me with visual talent to enable me to find a sanctuary. Things make sense in my own vision space. The study of metaphysics, religions, psychology, and art history help make sense of what I see and feel.
This sketch is because I’m coming out of Depression. When I forget this gift is my sanctuary, I get very very lost. I start looking for love in the wrong places…like in love affairs that never work. So getting ‘real’ and facing depression means returning to my First Love: Line.