How I Sketch

I was talking with a friend earlier.  One of my best friends from kid days and one of the most talented artists I went to high school with.  She does these amazingly detailed pen and ink drawings of animals.  She's going through a tough time right now, battling cancer.  She's been drawing again, but commented that it goes away if you don't use it.  I think it's about retraining your brain.  My college instructors always had us carry a sketch pad and draw, jot notes, glue clippings, just stay active throughout the day with your mind, your creativity and your drawing abilities.

Sue, this is for you.  Here's my last few weeks of sketches and paintings.  I warn you, my sketches are very loose, that's how I think best.  If you're working on retraining your brain to see perspective and scale, you can just sketch whatever you are looking at.  Chemo (I can't bear to think of you dealing with that), you can sketch to take your mind off of it.  Sketch the machines, or the medicine, write down your thoughts, anger, fear, surprise, monotony, boredom, whatever is going on in your mind.

In the montage of my recent sketches, the first photo is of the sketchbooks I tend to use.  I like them small enough to carry easily but not so small I can't fit anything on a page.  This one is about 5" x 5" by Pentalic and cheap at college bookstores.  I usually just carry an architects pencil, not sure of the specific name, drafting pencil maybe?  Pentel 0.7 are my favorites.  Charcoal just breaks too easily so these seem to travel well in my purse.

The montage above shows my notes and sketches for two of my recent works.  The first I did a few weeks ago and am still working on the larger, middle piece.  I started with words.  I wanted to do 3 pieces that went together and talked about my personal growth and struggles.  The first one is the past, people in your life who fill your world with criticism, the 2nd is about pushing through those things you start to believe and trying to find yourself and the last one is growth, balance, brightness, finally seeing yourself for who you are.

As I was working on these three paintings, I stumbled a bit in my personal life.  I swear, life is such a step-forward-and-two-steps-back type of thing.  So I started a new piece about crying, bleeding, finding the sun.  It started with the 2nd row of words and sketches on the montage.  I wanted to show the way my brain was spinning as I was trying to understand what I was feeling.  First I thought of very abstract, bright red splashes with a center of deep red, then I looked at using a tornado with my thoughts spinning to the vortex.

As I was working through my feelings and pain, I realized I was feeling better each day, so I focused the painting on how time heals all wounds.  That's when I jumped into building the canvas (which is a huge part of my process, I love texture).  I wanted the focus to be on a clock spinning, crazy and then the emotions forming a full circle.  I often clip images from magazines that inspire or interest me and those are pasted in my sketchbook throughout.  Since I had something specific in mind, I googled clocks, wanting to get an idea of how to make it look spinning or crazy.  I liked this dali-esque one because it was simple visually.  I also googled Alice in Wonderland and puddles and blood, tears, ray of sunshine, etc.  So this page has the clippings I glued into my sketchbook for this painting.  Then I have the last sketch I did and the final painting, which I called Time Heals.

Susan, I hope this gives you ideas on how to use what you're going through to get your creativity flowing again.  You are so talented, the world needs to see your amazing style.