TGIF ...

Today is Friday, and after I pick up Zachary from school tonight, I am essentially uncommitted for the entire weekend. Oh, there are a few things I would like to get done around the house, but nothing that MUST be done and nothing that will absorb loads of time. All of which means that I will have some time to myself to devote to the purposes of Art. I think I'm going to close myself up in a room and get into the book - Keys to Drawing by Dodson. I have looked through it and there is some great stuff in there - stuff I haven't seen in any of the other books I've purchased, recently, concerning Drawing and Sketching. And I really do want to learn. And practice. I absolutely MUST practice.

KTD (Keys to Drawing) goes into this thing about an artist's 'handwriting'. In doing so, there is an exploration of 'freehand' and 'control hand' in a discussion of how one works. I think I feel most comfortable working 'freehand' - my 'control hand' needs a lot of work. The control hand is expressed when you work in fine detail, and you get down close to the end of the pencil with your grip - small lines and fine, precise, detail. Freehand is busy and big and uses 'restatement' a LOT - restatement being a redraw of a line or element without erasure of the original line or element. So drawings full of restatements have a tendency to be imprecise and busy - kinda scribbly - where control hand drawings are precise and detailed. Freehand is how many artists begin a work which eventually becomes something else - a painting or watercolor, for example, or a control hand drawing (after a lot of work). Bu 'freehands' don't necessarily have to be anything other than what they were born as - it just depends on what you're doing and when you think you're done.

Anyway - I hope to practice this weekend. And I think I will try putting samples into this blog for the first time. After all, the idea here is to create a record I can look back on sometime in the future, after I get good and I need to be reminded where I came from. IF I get good. And IF I need to be reminded. In the future...