Solace in Observation

I had a wild hair earlier and decided to rummage through my son's construction paper for a black sheet. I have a single white pastel pencil (chalk type) and I wanted to experiment with lightening instead of darkening. I drew out an outline of a face and some hair, a little bit of shoulder and the neck. Ooooh, it was fun! I think I found what type of paper I'll use for my Narcoleptic inspired drawings. Maybe something a little higher in quality. Perhaps even black matboard. I haven't finished this drawing yet, but it's close.

As you can see, I have a tendency to change things around as I work. Her eyes were terribly annoying to do. Part of my problem is that I am working at a regular old table, not anything I can tilt up to get a better view of what I'm doing. In fact, I wind up having to completely change a drawing because I will see it just fine from the angle I'm drawing in, but as soon as I stand up to stare straight down or pick it up to hold it in front of my face, I'm all streaming profanity and violently crinkled features. Just, no. One of these days I'll have a drafting table!

Overall, I'm happy with how she's turned out so far. I will definitely be exploring this way of drawing further. May just have to ask for pastels for Christmas.

I like posting these progressions of my artwork. It's crazy to see how something starts and how completely different it winds up by the finish. I like to watch others as well and because of my experiment today I searched youtube to find videos of just that. This soothed me as I watched:



It's interesting how at first, it's all just basic shapes and seemingly random lines and squiggles. I spent a lot of my time in the past focusing so much on the end result that I couldn't wrap my head around what goes into it to give it the depth I needed to produce the intended result. Nothing but frustration. Obsessing about how you think it should look can impede the whole process. Let it evolve if it wants to evolve! You'll be surprised by what you wind up with.