Look, See

Untitled 8 (Occidental, Sonoma, California)

HTML, 220 x 720 pixels

Untitled 7 (Occidental, Sonoma, California)

HTML, 220 x 720 pixels

Untitled 6 (Occidental, Sonoma, California)

HTML, 220 x 720 pixels

Untitled drawings, Occidental, August 2004

These drawings are made using twigs and small branches picked up off the ground around the property of the house in Occidental where I stayed last week. Each is whittled to a flat edge or point with an Exacto blade and dipped in bottles of Higgins colored ink. These are mostly drawn using a straight edge (a piece of leftover oak flooring, about one quarter inch thick, one and a half inches wide, ten inches long), but there is also free-hand drawing here. The smaller paper is from a sprial bound Strathmore pad, the larger from a sprial bound Jack Richeson pad. I enjoy describing specifically what was used to make something. I'm still trying to find a way from the grid of the HTML drawings to drawings on paper. I'm not sure this is the way I want to go. Maybe I just need to get it out of my system. I made a number of drawings in black ink with sticks in 1979 that use the grid, a straight edge, building up an image. I wanted to try it again. And I'd like to go bigger and faster. I'm thinking of acrylic on gessoed paper. The top row of larger drawings are in response to the recent series, A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains, in their use of yellow, blue, and green, but tempered by being on a ridge above the Pacific, next to some huge oaks, under alternating foggy and sunny skies, and down the road from a grove of old growth redwoods. The drawings in the bottom row are about being on the property; the use of brown and red in two of the drawings is in response to a small leafy tree already turning into fall colors. The middle drawing is more about finding a structure related to the grid HTML drawings. Click each for larger view.
Untitled 1-3, August 2004 (Occidental, Sonoma, California), ink on paper, 12 x 9" (scanned)
Untitled 4-6, August 2004 (Occidental, Sonoma, California), ink on paper, 10 x 8" (scanned)

Untitled 5 (Occidental, Sonoma, California)

HTML, 220 x 720 pixels

10 sheets, circa 1981-84

Untitled, circa 1981-84, watercolor, ink, acrylic, and crayon on paper, 24 x 200"

The past few days I was staying at a house we are fortunate to go to a few times a year near Occidental in Sonoma County, high on a ridge above the Pacific. I took drawing materials and a roll of pieces of heavy paper.

When I unrolled the paper I was surprised to find a piece from around 1981-84: ten sheets of paper, each 24 x 20", with ink, watercolor, or acrylic, and crayon drawing, glued together via a narrow piece of paper to span the seam from sheet to sheet. Unfortunately, there is no date on any sheet, which is out of character for me at that time: I used to date everything to the day.

I think this piece, now twenty years old, was inside this roll of unused paper because of our recent move a few months back. I was surpised to see it. I enjoyed rolling it out on the living room floor under the skylights, and took pictures of it two sheets at a time on the last day. The surrounding yellow-ish color is the hardwood floor, copied and pasted in sections to cobble together a background to fill in around my irregular photos. The sheets don't line up perfectly because of my quick photo technique-- no tripod-- but you get the idea.

During this time, 1981-84, I did a number of works that joined several sheets of paper to form a long horizontal, each sheet with its own color, surface, drawing. Yet again, as with an image of a painting from this same era that I posted in May and found quite motivating, seeing this piece is an interesting look back at something that feels very current; I can't help but think, "What can I use here?"

Untitled 4 (Occidental, Sonoma, California)

HTML, 220 x 720 pixels

Untitled 3 (Occidental, Sonoma, California)

HTML, 220 x 720 pixels

Untitled 2 (Occidental, Sonoma, California)

HTML, 220 x 720 pixels