Somnabulistic Snippets
Over the course of the holidays in December, I found myself in front of the drawing table with a little free time on my hands. How, you may well ask, do I like to relax and spend my free time? Why drawing of course!
One never knows what images might be revealed by rubbing graphite over paper late at night. These drawings all grew from small suggesting scribbles on the page, some even grew larger than the pages themselves! As each drawing evolved and changed, they began to tell their own stories. Silently, in snippets and half-thoughts, through partial dreams and poetic flights of imagination, characters were slowly revealed, stages were set, questions were raised, and conclusions, well conclusions are best drawn by you dear reader. Enjoy.
The first sketch, is called “Feeding Her Muse.”
The next sketch takes place on a blustery full moon night, where letting go of ones creation may just lead to something far more magical:
Here is a sketch of longing, and of things we hold dear:
And lastly, a sketch that tells a tale of intrepid daring, of dark nights and goggles:
Happy New Year to you all, thank you so much for reading along here on the blog. I wish you all a healthy and prosperous New Year!
I love your work, amazing, as you say, what can be found in a bit of paper! I see some of yours were stuck together, do you keep them safe somewhere?
I find I can’t throw anything away, even rough stuff I find hard to ditch, do you keep all yours?
I do love to draw but find I have little time for it, so have to stick to illustrating my books, however, I’ve got this plan that flits in & out of my brain that I think I’ll work on once I’ve written the final book in my series this year. I see faces in all sorts of places, on floor tiles, on wall marks, tree trunks, door handles, screwed up paper bags, knobs on televisions, bushes, all sorts of things. I plan to take photo’s of anything I see a face in, then draw the face and make a character. Can’t wait to start!
Dee.
Happy & productive new year to you.
Howdy Dee,
Thanks for the comments! I have to say, after visiting your site, the bear books look positively charming! They put me in mind of a certain boy and his bear who romp about the 100 acre wood. Wonderful!
As for the drawings, well not all my drawings stick around the studio. I tend to throw out the real bonker ones. However I do have a few portfolios that are becoming more and more stuffed with drawings and such. One of these days I would like to gather up some of the real duds and burn them up, a la James Gurney’s “Gallery Flambeau.” For as he says, “an artist should not bequeath too many bad paintings to posterity.” {check out his posts on this, it’s actually quite amazing: Gallery Flambeau, and the hilarious Gallery Flambeau video}
Also, I would encourage you to start taking a small sketchbook around with you to capture some of those fleeting glimpses of faces, tiles, and door handles (oh my!) for your future story. Maybe think about it as if your sketchbook was a butterfly net; a place where you can capture all those little magic moments.
Thanks for reading along!
Really nice sketches here, Brian. Solid form mixed with lyrical line. I like how your mind works. Keep sharing.
Thank you Kim, I appreciate your kind words.