Unveiled

Here is my latest, titled Unveiled. It’s been sitting in my sketch pad for a week or two. It was NOT an easy free flowing composition that came out of some blast of inspiration. Instead this piece came out of scattered energies and unfocused thoughts. I was pushing myself to work, because the act of working brings me peace. Despite feeling creatively blocked and this piece being relatively painful to complete, I’m glad I stuck with it and didn’t just tear it up or colour it black, as I was tempted to do. In a sense its a reminder to me that the work serves me when I need it, just as much as I serve the work.

For a while I’ve noticed that the piece that comes after a piece that I really like, feels like this one did. I begin with a lot of expectation and then somewhere along the line I feel like it’s totally contrived and then rounding up to the end I push through to come out with something I have mixed feelings about.

However one thing I’ve learned when it comes to the creative process is how important it is to keep working on one’s practice, regardless of how interesting or futile it seems. Movement is important with creativity and like Liz Gilbert said in her TED talk, some days your muse shows up for work and some days they don’t. If you don’t keep working though, you might miss a good day.

Recent Sketches

Things have been hectic for me in the past couple of weeks. Given how scattered my mind has been lately, I have not been working on any particular pieces. Instead I’ve been doing a sketch every now and then. Among other things, Yesterday at lunch time I posted a print of Corvus to Grenada for the WOMA – Women Make Art Exhibit

Below are just some simple little mental ramblings.

Above is one of the sketches I did during a figure drawing class at Globe Studios on Feb 27th. It was my first time really drawing a man. For like about a minute it was a little giggle inducing to see the model strip off like it was nothing but then I settled into art mode and there was no more giggling. Similar to when I started drawing horses, it took a long time for me to separate drawing what was really in front of me from what my imagination wanted to fill in. It’s a good exercise and I’m hoping to make it back to another class soon. This was one of my more successful full sketches. Most of the others were zoom ins of a certain gesture or twist of his body. There’s a lot of pretty bad sketches in there too.

This was a quick sketch I did one night thinking about a situation my boyfriend was going through this week.

I don’t really know where this sketch came from. I started drawing and It just kind of happened. It looks like a starved mermaid and a tired eye to me. Dark though it is, I like it.