Saturday, January 29, 2011

Day 6: Spring Green


Sawyer, my daughter 15 year old, picker out this color. It was a difficult color because it is so light. I had a hard time getting much variation in tone until I started melting the crayon. (Amy, my sister, liked the smell of the melting crayon). About half way through I wished I had drawn on colored paper -I will do that for the next light color. Sawyer says this is her favorite drawing so far because there is so much going on and she wants to look at it all. This is my least favorite because there is so much going on - it feels chaotic and disjunct (have I said that about a previous drawing? Yes, I said that Blue Green was chaotic too). So far, with everyone of these drawings, I have not liked the drawing as I was creating it, but became attached and appreciative of its uniqueness after the fact. I need to stop being so quick to judge.

I started with the heart in the middle and everything grew out of that (I like the way that sounds metaphorically - "start with the heart and everything grows out of that"). I do like the combination of the organic and the architectural. For the past 16 years (from the time that Sawyer was born) I have really liked to draw stairs and ladders. They seems to be going somewhere - even if they're not. There is a scene in a 1953 musical fantasy film (5000 Fingers of Dr. T), by Theodor Seuss Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss), where the main character is running away from the bad guys, and he climbs up a huge ladder that goes nowhere - so he has to climb back down. I love that idea of the climb to nowhere. Its unexpected and nonsensical.

Maybe that is why I have always felt a deep connection to Dr. Seuss' drawings. I need to embrace my inner chaos and nonsense. This project so far has been great for forcing me to commit daily to something, and it has also ripped me out of my comfort zone (crayons have never been my medium of choice.)

Your thoughts?

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