Illustration Friday: Sizzle

I have an idea for a story about a rambunctious monkey brother and sister loosely modelled on my younger two children. (But we won't tell them that....)  Here they are not rambunctious at all, because looking into a camp-fire is hypnotically soothing. I heard somewhere that looking at fire or running water is soothing but never boring because the steady movement combined with infinite variation doesn't weary our brains. Maybe so.

No doubt these two will be hyper soon from staying up too late and eating all those marshmallows.

I did most of this as fast as I could before my kids got up yesterday morning. I used two very soft pencils so I wouldn't be tempted to take time I can't afford to build up thin layers of gray with a very hard pencil, which is how I like to do graphite nowadays. But I ended up fussing over it, taking too much time, and overworking parts of it anyway. A jeweler's-wax carving teacher I read said that if you feel something is wrong with a piece you're working on and you don't know what the problem is, pay attention to where your eyes get stuck. That's probably what needs to change. My eyes get stuck on the girl monkey's face, mostly, and if I had time I would do her again with closer set, more monkey-like eyes. Instead of just doing it over early on, or just quitting for awhile to give my subconscious mind time to solve the problem, I kept trying to fix it without figuring out exactly what was bothering me. It's hard for me to start something over, but I have learned that I get a lot farther making ten five-minute drawings than I do working for three hours trying to save one drawing that has gone astray.

I'm not making art, I'm making an artist.

For a period of time a few years ago I would stay up very late after my children were asleep and draw with colored pencils. It was partly an experiment to learn whether the joy of making art would make up for sleep deprivation. For awhile, the joy of making art won out. I felt happy and energized during the day even though I was tired, but in the long run I damaged my health by using dessert to fuel late nights. (No more sugar for me, and usually a decent amount of sleep.)

I was trying to become an artist. I would still my thoughts and see what image wanted to come out of me. I would take careful pauses to discern what colors to use, what lines to draw by giving my intuition space. I would wait quietly when I was unsure, and go ahead trusting my intuition when it spoke. I didn't use an eraser. If I made a mistake I let it stand to add irregular beauty. I learned  by doing and doing and doing. I didn't push myself or force anything and it all felt very easy. I didn't worry about it when I made drawings I didn't like much. I just kept moving. My motto at that time was "I'm not making art, I'm making an artist." I didn't finish much, but I filled a sketchbook with seed and reference material that I still use.

I'm in a different place now. I often try to make art. I often try to finish things, anyway. Right now I am struggling to finish a wax model for a pendant with a tree of life enclosed in a circle with a cross integrated into the design. Here I am working on an early version with my lovely assistant.

I want to make a beautiful, delicate, meaningful thing to cast in silver, but I am finding it difficult. I've started over twice. I expect to begin again once more. I feel half-guilty anxiety over taking so long over this one thing (a hold-over from paid-by-the-hour carving work.) A part of me wants to quit and do something easier so I can just get stuff done to fill up my Etsy store, but I also feel driven to stick with it. My husband says that's because I know I can do it. I am learning a lot about design and my craft, and I do expect at last to make something pretty to wear, yet the struggle is painful for reasons I don't fully grasp. I keep thinking of the last line of this passage from a favorite book, The Dean's Watch, by Elizabeth Goudge:

"It was a glorious clock.....The golden fret that hid the bell was the loveliest Isaac had ever made. The two swans were just rising from the reeds, one with wings fully spread, the other with his pinions half unfolded. Job could understand from experience, and the Dean through intuition, what an achievement it had been to form those great wings and curved necks into a pattern that was a fitting one for a clock fret and yet alive, but only Isaac had known how he had sweated and labored over it. It had been a costing clock."

This pendant I am making is a costing pendant. In the end I don't expect it to be my masterpiece, but it will certainly represent an important step in my skill development. I think I'm still making an artist more than I am making art. I am making an artist who not only knows how to follow the easy flow of intuition but also how to persevere in recovering from mistakes and solving (for me) difficult problems of design and craftsmanship.

wallpaper design by illustrator Walter Crane (1845-1915)