Zen and Line Drawing
Tulips and embroidered shawl on a Druze chest.
In addition to the paintings I've been posting this spring, I've also been drawing a lot. Here are a few recent ones.
Apple blossoms, pine cone, and two Chinese bronze horses.
When I look back over the past few years, I can see the evolution of a personal style, and increasing assurance, in these line drawings. Like anything else -- from cooking, to a sport, to getting along in a relationship -- it takes practice and time and thinking about what works and what doesn't. But in something like this, which is kind of Zen -- in that you don't have second chances, and the line needs to appear effortless, as if it "drew itself," with a pleasing balance of forms and positive and negative space -- the only way to get there is to "polish a thousand tiles" or shoot a thousand arrows - i.e., do it over and over until the technique has become totally ingrained -- then you can stop thinking, let technique take care of itself, and at least have a chance of becoming one with the object of your attention.
Some of the drawings are busier, some more minimal.
Still life with three mangoes.
Hitting a bulls-eye is rare, and the near-misses are always worth studying: I try to ask myself what works, what do I like, what doesn't seem to work so well? Where did I get involved in "drawing", where did I start thinking too much? Where does it feel the most free?
Still life with fruit, faded tulips, and Mexican jar.
I could keep doing this all my life: it's that challenging, that elusive, that satisfying.
Tulips, mirror, and bowl of fruit.
