Palm leaf up close

SO I woke up pretty early on a weekend a few weeks back and just really felt the urge to go outside with my morning tea and draw something. At around 6:30am, it's really bright and sunny, but the birds are still singing, and it's still "moist" outside. So I sat on the steps leading to the upstairs apartment of my neighbor's, and saw this palm leaf through the steps that was backlight by the rising sun. I thought it would be both challenging and fun because it has all these little lines in the leaf, as well it does have an odd shape from this angle.

Plans for a new painting series

When I daydream that I will actually have the time to carry out one of my ideas, I tend to imagine painting. Or I should say, images in my head that I would like to execute in one way or another. The funny thing is I see these images in time: moving, or my perspective moving around them, giving them a 3-d feel. It's hard to explain. It's also hard to translate into a finished artwork, because a moving image means I can't exactly memorize it as it is, the vision is always morphing or changing.

One Series I have been wanting to create is the a series of figures that are being taken over by an element. The images here are for earth. "Being taken over" is probably a bad description. They are not really moving toward or away from the element in question they are half element, half human (or half figure). This is a multilayered idea: I wanted the opportunity to take my drawings and make them more permanent (pencil and paper do not seem like they will survive to me), and I wanted an opportunity to marry some styles and paint from my head in the same way I draw from my head (as opposed to a model or reference).

Shown above is the original drawing (and detail), which I liked a lot and so I wanted to record it before I messed it all up with nonsense. I'm offerring you all a close up so you can scrutinize my drawing style. When I was in highschool, studying drawing I would draw every last detail and it would take forever. Great results, but it made me hate the thought of drawing because it was so boring and labor intensive. I have lost my patience and now do this quicker sketchy style, which to me has more "AhA!" moments. Lovely lines that surprise me, making me look at the piece and think, "Wow, I did that?" Plus it is a lot more expressive. I'm not trying to make everything perfect, and because I'm a little lax on the location of body parts, things become a little more elongated, angular, etc. It's also due to the fact that I left my hand move through it's natural rotation more, being to lazy to pick it up and move it. It all works out in the end.

Figure Sketch

I wanted to show you all this. A nice drawing, not the best thing I've ever done, but decent. And not even finished. I was adding some color to it just to spruce it up and I spilled the paint on the piece. I was so mad at myself for doing that. I just wanted to share with everyone, even if you have talent it still takes a lot to have a piece reach the point of finished. I don't know how many times I have smudged something, ripped paper, dropped a pen on a art piece, scratched paint of a finished painting. Some of it you can go back in and work out, and some of it you just can't. This being the later.

I have done a few works like this, but to me it's just practice. Something about figures, it's hard for me to take the figure and do something with it to make it a more in depth piece, rather than just a drawing of a person. I have this idea of taking the figures, in similar poses to this one and having them melt into the four elements. (Kinda along this organic / nature / environment theme.) I tend to have lots of ideas like that but when I get to creating the piece the people just look cheesy. I think it's because in my head they are almost in motion, I see the figures from many different angles. The images in my head, even though they are ideas for 2-d work are almost three dimensional when I visualize them. Maybe it's better to describe it this way: all the different components of the painting: the background, foreground, specific objects or textures get re-arranged as I play with what the layout would be. I also tend to imagine myself working on the piece so I see it from different angles as I imagine myself working close-up and then stepping back.

The sketch is done with graphite and gouache on paper. To be honest, I was getting carried away with the paint, I watered it down a little too much (instead of adding white to lighten it), and the water made the paper all wrinkly.