Drawing I

Chicago Winter, Morning

Today work was canceled due to a severe winter storm, although I think in this case what the weather was forecast to be influenced the perception of what actually happened. 1 foot of snow isn't exactly stay home weather, but I was happy to remain indoors and work on the drawing which I started last week.

The first session with the drawing I stopped with only 1/4 completed. The perspective of the bridge was a bit tricky, but the fact that I had not made a drawing in so long made my confidence waver when looking upon the initial lines I had put to paper. While I was aware that the beginning of any drawing is not going to look very good, I still doubted whether I could push past the first awkward looking lines.

So I let the drawing sit for 6 or 7 days on my kitchen table where it could taunt me by the hour. A few days ago I had a dream that I sat down to the drawing and picked out a pencil which marked dark, heavy lines. It helped to create the shadows needed to offset the stick figure lines which I had begun with. When I woke from the dream I was pleased and confident that I could finish the drawing. Not only is it pleasurable to observe the mind create detailed works of art, but I now believed that picking a shading pencil would help me finish the drawing.

Today I sat down and chose a thick charcoal pencil and began to draw, shape, shade, erase - my mind got into that special flow where time stops and the only thing that matters are the lines on the page.