Day 9: Red

I really like that this one is not as busy as some of the others.  I purposely stopped myself before I thought I was done and I walked away for a little while.  When I came back and viewed it with a fresh eye, I decided that it was done. Sometimes less IS more.  That is outside of my comfort zone, but it does seem consistent with trying to do less, better (monotasking).

I mentioned in another blog post that I like stairs and ladders, while here is that symbol again - without intentionally putting it in.  I think I may spend some time looking up metaphors, meanings and mentions of ladders and stairs.  That is what I tell my clients to do when images and symbols begin to reoccur in their artwork.

I am ascending something - moving towards the future.  The "Bliss" (free floating images) are still in the background as the circles, but now there is a path. A direction.

The red is very dynamic, energetic and powerful.  I have had some emotional challenges in the past few days, and I believe that I am calling on my inner strength for power, direction and stability.  I have to accept my limitations, and understand, and maybe alter, my own response to frustration. I may have to change my role in the family dynamics.

There is a lot of texture that is created from removing the wrapper* and spinning the crayon on it's side. That is how I made those circles in the background.  I purposely broke the crayon into several different sizes so I could get different circle radii.

*When I was a child, it was very easy to remove the Crayola wrapper. All I had to do was open it at the seam and it lifted right off.  Sometimes it even slipped off by accident (maybe that is why they changed it).  But it seems that the wrapper is now glued to the crayon, and in order to remove it I have to scrape off small parts at a time and often my fingernail digs into the side of the crayon - leaving unwanted grooves and gouges. 

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?