I'm writing this through March, but really its already been summer since a month now. I'm not complaining...the sun and I are old pals.
The last three months I've been increasingly intentional not only about how I move through big chunks of art work, but also about what I allow in my day, who I spend my time with, what I cook, what I eat when I don't cook! Excellent results. Will this last? I doubt it. I was lucky to have so much predictability in my days, and this is rare. More often, things are shifting and spontaneous, around me but also within me. And there's always going to be need to recalibrate my mode of operation. But at the moment, we're in a good rhythm.
I've now finished work for the project I mentioned last time. A better artist, a mature artist, a more disciplined artist would go back in and fix about a 100 things in it. I however, am ready to take joy in the fact that it is completed, & take everything I've learnt here and apply it to something new and fresh.
After the project ended, I wasn't able to make my usual little spur-of-the-moment drawings much. Maybe because for 3 months all I had done on the art front daily was digital paintings - think 'colouring book' exercise, leaving my drawing skill dormant. It definitely felt like I was facing some block, but I didn't bother to shake it off. It was okay to not feel like drawing for some time. I'm not a fan of forcing art, or forcing anything really, especially when its not necessary for survival, and when I'm not functioning from a place of inspiration, but instead from one of insecurity. "what if not practicing deteriorates my skill", "if i stop, what if I can never start back up?" Na ah. Sometimes its got to be very uninspired, non creative days, without any drawings. That's not scary to me.
In my experience, it is these uninspired days which let me experiment with something totally new. The boredom somehow liberates me from the focus on 'performance' (very outward) and instead moves the focus to 'play' (very inward), allowing me to really indulge in what I enjoy most, and be authentic to what I think and feel. Paying attention to my own desires or curiosities has often has led me back into art - sometimes with a newer tool, or a different understanding of colour, or ideas for new subject matter, or a story...
So...'worried', I was not. I'd come back to drawing sometime soon. I was just waiting to see how that'll be this time!
Now, mysterious ways and what not - at my day job I had recently opened the can of worms called 'typefaces'. It baffled me that it is always easy to recognise when type is inappropriate even the slightest bit, but its not very easy to determine which would be the perfect fit looking ahead. Most of us, have just found a combination that's worked wonders once, and stuck to it.
In case you're like me and unsure :
TYPEFACE = the shape of the letters
FONT = size of the letters, style(italic / bold), spacing, etc.
I had never understood the math and logic behind choosing 'type' before, and after looking into it lately, I still don't. But lets focus on whats important here - I had looked at so many typefaces in the process, I was almost starting to see them as these interesting shapes, instead of the sound they represented. I wondered if these letters were thoughtful compositions. And viola! I knew how to get back into drawing again - I'd test these designs out for myself. I took to what is more commonly called '36 days of Type'. I had heard of this before but it never held my attention because making up new typefaces is really not where my passion lies. But illustration is. So I decide I'm going to draw my way through the latin alphabet.
This plan came together so quickly, I had to pause for a moment and think clearly about what I was trying to do :
Use the shape of the letters as a composition guide. Nothing more. This needed to be a visual exercise. I didn't need the illustrations to be conveying anything, or the drawing to depict a word that started with the letter...none of that.
Draw and paint very slowly. The past few months I was on a deadline with art, and I wanted to come back to a slower pace, enjoy each drawing and really indulge in detailing it out, get back into learning and experimentation mode.
No more than 2 letters in 24 hours. Working on a project also meant my head was in 'production' mode towards the end. As focus shifted to speedily finishing the book, the iterations reduced, the details reduced and sadly, so did my attachment to the drawings. It felt a bit mechanical towards the end. And I wanted to reconnect to what I draw. This wasn't going to happen if I ate through 10 letters in a day. The exercise would be over in two and a half days. No, I wanted to revive an older habit if I did this.
With that in mind, here's what happened to the letters in the next 20 odd days. Some are tricky to figure out I know, some rather obvious and a couple got away from me as the drawing became more important than the letter shape.
Enjoy the long scroll with some over-done patterns, and I'll see you at the end of it :)
Oh, joy!
Perfect timing too, as I had a lot of travel going on this month, and plenty of hours daily where I was just waiting on a bus or a plane or a car or a train. Painting in public spaces used to feel a tad bit uncomfortable, but I quickly got past that when I noticed these transit times can be long, often unpredictable, scattered and just a colossal waste if I don't spend them on some drawing practice.
<I'll not get into the details of why I'm travelling or where to, as the topic tends to raise my blood pressure and that's not healthy.> I'd much rather dedicate some lines here to appreciating the cards I've been dealt -I've got the perfect ally in the iPad, letting me paint on the move, & more importantly I don't have a tendency for motion-sickness - making this whole planet my personal art station. <3
As for the little type exercise, I did wonder if the letters / language as a whole were prompting a certain kind of mood or motion in the drawings. I want to venture further, and check out other scripts. But that's going to have to wait. For now, I got what I needed out of this. I've made friends with type, and know it can help me out of a creative slump!
That's me...
Hope everybody is doing well and that your days are going by spiritedly.
Hope you're enjoying spring slowly turning into summer (or for some of us, suddenly).
And I'll now see you next when its slightly cooler and drizzly outside...
Byeee!
This is awesome!!
Nice n fluent narrative...great idea of using alphabets so creatively. Keep writting.