This is barely at stage 1, still. Literally just raised it up from its grave this week. It was sitting in my sketchbook messily scribbled in on a bad drawing day - one of those when my hand and head are seemingly in two separate universes and, despite desperate flitterings and twiddlings of the frequency dials, I just can't seem to hit that one frequency that I otherwise comfortably coast on - sometimes, often, in good times, downright blaze on.... So, I abandoned it last spring, pretty much a year back from now, crusty and pissed that I "ruined" it by getting too skitchysketchy spazzaloid on it. But, now, with fresh eyes, I'm thinking this has some promise, perhaps, afterall. I reminded myself of what I always find myself telling my son, Sy, when he gets upset in the middle of drawing when things don't go his way and declares angrily "I ruined it!" - I always tell him there's no such thing as ruining something. Don't get so misguided into the paranoid thought of your drawing being unforgiving. That paranoia is a crutch. Remember, it's YOUR creation - you do as you please with it. YOU are in command. You can never ruin a drawing, you can only steer it in a different direction than originally charted. Just make something of it. No such thing as mistakes in expression, because expression is ultimately organic.
So now I'm telling myself that - just as I tell Sy.
My goal then, was to celebrate Thumbs in a beautiful art nouveau style that has always deeply tickled me. I've been admiring and adoring the art nouveau style ever since I chose to do an essay on in for Mr. Franklin's (or was it Ms McGivney's?) grade 11 art class in high school. That's when I discovered art nouveau and instantly fell in love. All these years, I've been too spazzy to push myself hard enough to sit in one place for hours and practice and hone the intricacies of the art nouveau style. Plainly, I've been part insecure, part impatient. My style is literally spazz sketching. Just quick, rough, wild. So it does not gel too well with such a clean and perfectionistic style as art nouveau. Yet I know it's in me. And now is the time to hone it! I've rushed this one already, but deliberately slowing myself down now. I want to freehand all of it, but scanned it in for analysis and better digitally aided geometric plotting bleep-bloop-blip. Also, blocking in areas of dark to see if that, infact, is where I want dark...My main circle in the center is off a touch, but I don't mind. Last night I walked out in the pouring rain to buy a much needed professional compass. It's getting serious now. I have a compass!
Stay tuned for stage two. I am NOT rushing this one!
