figures, brush (dry), headphones.

i am very happy my basement has crappy cinderblock walls that have a grain to them. i did a good amount of dry brush work with a 4" chinese tool that cost about 50 cents on clearance five years ago. paint would build up and after a few handy swipes across the wall the bristles would be clean(ish) and finish the job. repeat, repeat, repeat.

i mainly worked on two pieces of structure tonight, with another two on the side for fun.
tackling the figure pieces ive started, one on two joined pieces and the other on a piece of Rives BFK, i am pulling back from what i see as being too obvious, abstracting, washing out, covering, and destroying lines. i like that i have been trained to fall in love with a line one day only to see it as potentially at risk upon the next viewing or two. what shape does it create? how does it work with the line like it over here? is it relevant to what i am feeling or listening to?

does it matter? does what i did yesterday matter? does that line, color, shape matter?

of course sometimes it does, but only for the moment that i am making it. never, while making the line or shape, do i honestly think, "this is just going to be covered by tuesday." maybe itll stay. maybe its the best thing about the piece. but its not safe to say it is, or will be.

its process. and headphones, and wine and cigarettes, and dancing and singing along.

and looking and remembering.

the mixture of medias i am working with really has little or everything to do with the work; as Professor David Morrison said countless times, "See how that comes across....there....and comes across.... there......and comes across......." what i never got while not really studying under him was the phrase and its depth; he wasnt just talking about the space where a line or shape moved or was situated. he was talking about how the viewer could see it, how it was consumed by they eye and processed in the brain. how it would 'come across' to the viewer.
for some viewers, the fact that corners and cubbies of lines meeting are cleaned up with colored pencil or layered with a smudge of a finger could very well come across as something other than a shape, could mean something to the whole, could mean something more than the object the action was made upon.

so the figure (or at least the shapes that could potentially look like one) are there, and i can see them. but where do they fit into the space of the picture? how does the curve of a calve muscle meet the curve of a cheek bone without looking that way?


practice. and work. and seeing it.

so happy ive got friday off.