Sun Series #1

Sun Series #1

Thursday, July 6, 2017

My Brain's Desire

"Notes to Self"
mixed media on paper
30 x 22"

This work is an experiment in automatic drawing which I've read about but never really tried with any depth of exploration.  Automatic drawing lets you sink into the quality and experience of making marks and developing the relationships between them which in turn lifts you out of your logical brain’s desire to make something that’s “good” or “accurate.”

I saw a video on the internet, don't remember quite where, and borrowed a book from the library called "Expressive Drawing".  In that book the process was to make the random marks suggested in the definition above using a dark drawing media (charcoal, conte crayon, pencil, black paint).  After a certain amount of time, the drawing is obliterated with white paint, also done randomly.  One works back and forth between the drawing and the veiling of the work with white paint.  After a certain point you begin to assess and make decisions based on the shapes and revealed elements on the paper.

This is my second try.  The first one got pretty dark and messy because I use charcoal...lots of charcoal.  This one has charcoal but only at the end to really emphasize some dark areas that I liked.  The rest of the drawing media was pencil, a black colored pencil and black paint.  I am sure I cheated, as I started mixing gray to get the tones I wanted.  But the whole idea for me was to see where this process would lead me and to make it my own.

When I refer back to the definition I feel like the process did lift me out of my logical brain for the most part, but I couldn't keep it totally at bay.  But my brain's desire was still to make something not necessarily accurate, but good.  Not sure how "good" it is, but it was fun and somewhat of a revelation.


1 comment:

  1. Thanks for posting this, Clare. It sounds like loads of fun. I want to try it, too.

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