Taking A Line For A Walk

“Drawing is taking a line for a walk” – Paul Klee

I’m an urban sketcher and this blog reflects that fact with a steady stream of sketches done on location as I wander around the city.  If I do “art” at all, this is it.

But I’m also a baseball fan, a Toronto Blue Jays fan to be precise.  This is baseball season and that means I record near daily Blue Jays games and I watch them in the evening.  While watching I generally have a pen in my hand, cheap sketchbook on my lap.  I doodle.  I practice drawing parallel lines, drawing ellipses, circles, etc.  I consider it the equivalent of a pianist playing scales and I do need the practice.

I was doodling away and the Jays were doing well.   One of my few active neurons fired and I remembered seeing faces drawn by artists who let their pen wander around, spending more time in dark tone portions of a face than elsewhere.  In doing this they create a face.  I thought I’d try it and I have to admit that it was fun to take a line for a walk.  Have you ever done this?

Pilot Metropolitan, J.Herbin Cacao de Bresil