the basics

"Skill is how you close the gap between what you can see in your mind's eye and what you can produce; the more skill you have the more sophisticated and accomplished your ideas can be. With absolute skill comes absolute confidence, allowing you to dare to be simple."

- Twyla Tharp

The Creative Habit

skill then...

probably the best advice I have come across in a long time... it answers all the questions, and most especially, gives me a roadmap to the simplicity I crave in my work

Rachel once commented on my quest for simplicity that one needs to understand what truly needs to be present in the work and ensure that it is, in order for it to look complete and not a half-hearted attempt... kind of like "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth"

I've thought about that a lot over the months since she wrote it and now these words from Twyla Tharp feel like a way to get there

so, literally, back to the old drawing board

as I admire Anita Lehmann's work so much I signed up for her online courses on watercolour and drawing and for the past ten days they have been the focus of my attention

lots of paint mixing and washes, learning about brushes and so on as well as pencils, true vertical and making good strokes

its early days but I am seeing progress

below is a drawing of a piece of driftwood from Lake Bennett... drawn with an "F" pencil and then given a light wash with Florence Printmakers watercolour

I could bring in the brown but I'm not going for realism and I prefer the softer grey

this piece of wood is a fragment of a plank... from a boat perhaps, or part of a cabin on the shore?

there was a ship-building yard part way down the lake and as well, several of the smaller boats built at the lake's headwaters by Stampeders sank... who's to say, but regardless of it's origins, it's a remnant of a time that has passed, events long over;  stories lost to time in the same way the wood has lost it's own substance

in the evening, just before bed I sit and copy a drawing or two out of a book by John Busby on drawing birds

I have always found I learn much from copying drawings - same idea as drawing from a photograph except I choose photos of drawings and so I see how the artist used line and shadow, noticing the expressive lines and where they work best

no eraser, no smudging tool, just one pencil and a small book

and in light of my last post detailing frustrations at trying to paint a wash with a lousy brush I bought myself a better quality flat brush and today I tried a pear with soft and hard edges

much, much better!

rather pleased with this effort although it was a big challenge - my first attempt went in the trash

paying attention to the dryness of the paper as you lay in the layers is a lot more important than I realized but try and try again

another good exercise to repeat, over and over

and over again

building skill is all about time and effort

and a big stack of paper!