It has been a while. An intended three-week break away from here over December somehow became three months. I can’t really blame it on the vague excuse of ‘somehow’, as I have been so very conscious of time gushing by with no posts to punctuate its passing. ‘Somehow’ hints at a stint of oblivion, an immersion in busy and engrossing things, things too delightfully encompassing to cast as much as a thought towards writing, or sharing what I am working on at the least. I have ruminated on it repeatedly. I can only ascribe to this temporal dispatch a heavy hesitancy, a feeling so tangible, sitting in the pit of my stomach, generating fear and shutdown. When I look at it rationally, it seems ridiculous.
Why don’t I share my process? It’s what I want to do after all. The fear bears no justification. Just do it and get over it. Austin Kleon wrote in Show Your Work!:‘It sounds a little extreme, but in this day and age, if your work isn’t online, it doesn’t exist. […] If you want people to know about what you do and the things you care about, you have to share.’ I slip into inertia around sharing, however. The world is a busy place and art making for me is a sanctuary for respite. That makes this place, this blog, the ideal habitation for sharing, away from the competitive campaigns and distractions of social media. It does not explain my absence, but thinking about it helps me to put it into perspective. This is a reminder of the reasons why I should be here, even if it’s not for anyone but myself.
Anyhow, it’s not like I haven’t made art these last three months. I have. And I like what I’ve done. At the beginning of the year, I spent a few weeks experimenting with ink and watercolour, finding ways to capture some gnarly Devon winter trees. I began by trialling wet drawing ink over fresh watercolour and was mesmerised by the crawling patterns this created. I added some grains of salt to a few, to see what would happen. They conjured the bleakness of the moors, or the quiet sway of underwater plants. I made numerous pages of these types of thumbnails, searching for the best combinations. My plan was to create some bigger versions based on trees I know.
On a larger scale, the ink was stubborn and would not move in the same way. It frustrated me somewhat but I kept trying. Eventually, I felt done with the experimentation and wanted once again to draw. With that decision, my vision of the trees changed and I leant once again towards a more graphic style. The dip pen and black ink conveyed the haunting darkness of the branches.
In this second one, hours were spent layering inks and watercolours with little yield towards what I envisioned. I chose to use gouache to render the background, as everything else looked insipid. I don’t necessarily feel that this whole project is done. It’s that the buds have since sprouted on the trees and the moodiness now arrested. I have moved onto other drawings and am searching for the next fascination.
When I feel stymied in my art making, experimentation can help to blow out the cobwebs. Even if it is a temporary flirtation with new materials or processes, it creates fresh possibilities to consider. I never feel that the experiments are the final pieces, usually because I am drawn to hard edges and definition. There is a part of me that would like to push further into the unknown. I suppose all of it is part of the process, the continuous round of examination and response. The input and output of being creative. An overarching aim for perspicuity.