Back in the Studio

Because of the wrist fracture and then our daughter's wedding I had not been in the studio (except for Joel Janowitz's drawing group) in months.  Deciding to go in and work was daunting and I immediately felt myself tightening up.  So I tried my best to repeat a mantra I have heard from so many other artists:  Just create and don't worry about the outcome.

And so I decided to just draw a dustpan and broom and not worry if I liked it or not.  I drew with ink so I could not get fussy or erase.  I listened to bad 80s music and at the end of the day I left feeling eager to return, which was the only goal for my going that day. 

The Casts.

So July 20th I fell and broke my right wrist while we were testing out Brompton Bikes (UK designed and made bikes that fold).   Fortunately I am a lefty.   After surgery I was in a series of casts for 6 weeks.  To keep myself sane I used my casts as a portable canvas had fun designing and drawing on each one.  There was a bit of a learning curve as I did not want to use anything but Sharpies on the fiberglass for fear that I would compromise how breathable it was.  And the fiberglass's texture presented some challenges when it came to my wanting to create something with too much detail.  But by the end I mastered how to transfer a drawing onto the cast and control over using the sharpies to get various effects on the fiberglass.  

Each cast has a Brompton Logo with an additional crashed bike on the bottom.  The accident happened hour 23 of our 24 hour free Brompton trial.   Then there is a tool presenting the healing (breaking, putting back together, removing of metal) along with  wasps and prickles to represent how the cast felt.  The middle cast has the eclipse (drawn with a mirror) because that is the cast I wore when the eclipse occurred which I drew for the kids in the neighborhood who really enjoyed the casts and watching them change as I drew on them.  The final cast has Yorrick's skull sitting  among all of Ophelia’s flowers (each one mentioned in the play is in there) and  a crown with the roman numeral 54 on it because it was my birthday and we went to see Oscar Isaac/Keegan-Michael Keys  in Hamlet at the Public Theater in NYC.  Sadly we saw the last performance and the cast of Hamlet did not do signatures as they were having a cast party.  I tried to get my cast into the cast party but alas the woman guarding the door would have none of it.

Jill

Thinking about rhythm

I looked at my drawing this morning and thought about rhythm and patterns and realized there was a way to make the composition stronger. I added the cell phone charger and cord to break up the square space and to add a curve that countered the curves in the egg carton. What do you think?

A new website

At long last, a new website is in the making. Stay tuned!