The Lesser-Known Sick Little Pig

OK, I'm past my moment of self-doubt, but still it's been a rough week! While I haven't exactly been sick for the past month, I haven't exactly been healthy either. I've been drained of all energy with sniffles for a day, sore throat on another day - nothing that sticks around for any length of time or escalates into a cold or flu. Nothing just floors me or is excuse enough to step away from what needs doing and crawl into bed. Yesterday, my voice just up and left (sigh).

Needless to say, those spare moments that I normally would have crammed with doodling or some creative effort have been spent lying down, trying to regain some energy for my evening job. I did, however, make it out to the studio the other night and, at least, did a little drawing. The subject: farm animal; the medium: chalk pastel.

Even though I've expressed my desire to work with more natural colors, a blue pig immediately popped into my head. Soooooo, I went with the old familiar expressive color palette. It's kind of a stange little picture and, in retrospect, it reflects back on my own health and attitudes in recent weeks - the little pig sure looks sick (color, pose and facial expression - or lack of).

Of course, I chose the color, but I find this little pig representative of some other realizations about my drawing skills that I've been pondering recently and will elaborate in the near future. For now we'll just say that chalk pastel is not a comfortable medium for me. But, realities such as that are what drove me to create my little drawing game - it would force me work with materials outside of my comfort zone.

A Little Monkey Business...

I was able to squeeze out a whole hour in the studio yesterday with all that was going on. I did my little drawing "warm-up" game - this time the theme was monkey and the material was oil pastel.

To be honest, I really haven't worked with oil pastel except with kids - the usual watercolor resist activity. I probably started working on too small a scale in my sketchbook. Oil pastel doesn't involve any fine tips, so it would be a good thing for me to work with in fostering a greater "looseness" that I would like to explore a little more.

Since I was just working out of my head, I think my monkey came out looking a bit like Curious George. So, while I was on my break at work, I found an image of a real monkey (a Capuchin) to practice.

So, now it's another day that can work in the studio before I have to go to work at the bookstore. However, I woke up feeling a little ill - sore throat, drained of all energy, etc. I hate to miss out on this chance to draw (now that I finally have it). But, I also feel the need to sleep. Perhaps I can squeeze in a little of both.

A Game to Get Things Rolling...

It's funny how when you finally have time for yourself, you still manage to fill it with a lot of "other" things. In spite of having the night off from work, it was still after 8:00 p.m. before I finally let myself go out to the drawing table. Then, I was really too tired to do much - just a smidge of sketching. Besides, my studio is in the garage - a little chilly in winter (even if I am in California with a space heater).

Anyway, today was different. I did have some morning stuff to do, but I managed to get out to the studio around 12:30, just after lunch, and spend a good 2 hours solid. I have to work tonight, so I have to figure in a little "rest" time and dinner prep.

Since time is precious and I can spend a great deal of it trying to decide what to do, I came up with sort of a game to help me get started. I figured it would serve as a "warm-up," but if I get into what I'm doing, then I'd just keep going. I simply wrote down about 25 different subjects such as farm animal, household furniture, buildings, etc. on different pieces of paper and threw them into a bowl. I did the same with several different materials such as charcoal, ink, watercolor, etc. I then chose one paper from each bowl - the subject I would warm-up with and the material I would have to use. I did it today for the first time and came up with "bear" and "colored pencil." (shown above)

I probably worked on it for about 30 minutes before I moved on, but it turned out to be a fun way to get the creativity flowing. I'm not sure that the bear's foreshortened leg is very accurate, but I didn't have a bear handy. When I got tired of working on it, I switched over to a project that had been a doodle, but I'm redoing it as a completed picture. I'll share that in a future post.