I’ve just come up for air after another semester at school. I think I have two more required courses to complete before I gain my diploma, which will take me to April 2024.

Here are the pieces that I created in drawing and printmaking courses. And maybe a couple that I made on my own time (I can’t recall if I had any of my own time)

The first drawing immediately below is part of an exercise in drawing class. First, I had to draw something that I would not ordinarily draw, something that I “hate”, for whatever reason: colour, medium, line use. So I drew a princess who came with a saying:

The second part of the assignment involved converting the first drawing into another drawing, working on top of it and doing whatever I needed to do to make the next drawing. I ended up with this:

Also, I continued to go to the gym.

In printmaking, I created my first linocut, entitled “Measure by Cod”.

I think the following sketch would have made an interesting screen print.

Instead, though, I opted to convert a drawing I had done last June for the basis of a screen print. First, below, the drawing (pastel), and then the screen print. I had called the drawing “Re-evolution” (for reasons that are now lost to me) and the screen print has the title of “Cod Surfing”.

In printmaking we also did an etching; I had grand ideas for the etching, but it didn’t turn out as I had hoped. I’ll post it here anyway, but without explaining the grand idea.

In drawing we had two other assignments: model studies that we did in class, and a drawing project for which we had to write a proposal…and then carry it through.

One of the model studies involved drawing a live model who sat and played the drum for different lengths of time. At one point we were to prepare a substrate for our model drawing, and using acrylic paint, I created two backgrounds for two 30 minute drawings. Here are the backgrounds and the drawings that they became. I think I may eventually return to the first drawing to get rid of the Homer Simpson-looking head; the second completed drawing below is called “Heartbeat”.

For the other drawing project, I had to write a proposal for what I intended to do, and I planned to use thick card board sheets and use markers to draw a series of 10 pieces, each of which would be a depiction of a “transit”; I was thinking of all the changes I had gone through in my life, and was currently going through, and saw myself as moving through a series of portals. I saw each of the ten pieces as a part of an autobiographical graphic novel. Things did not go exactly as planned, which is exactly why I like proposals: they just show you where you started and where you ended up. I won’t include all the process photographs in here, but this is what I ended up with…each section of the nine is 20 x 24 inches, which means the total size of the drawing is 60″ x 66″; I used markers for the most part, and the large black bird was made with oil stick. Maybe it’s needless to say that I have left behind the idea of turning this into a graphic novel, as the black bird pulls all the separate panels into one. Of course I have process photographs, so I suppose it is not impossible.

The following drawings are all from after the end of school. I’m living a bit of an ungrounded life at the moment, so I’m working very small scale and allowing myself to be a bit silly. Here is the silliness from my 11 x 14 sketchbook:

Finally, here are some photographs of me, included here because in all three of them I am goofing around. For the last two, I was pretending that I was sitting for my book jacket photograph; it seems important to have one’s hands under one’s chin, and in my case it’s a good idea to keep my neck covered.

And finally finally, here is the book that I am reading to keep my mind occupied while my access to comfortable drawing spaces is limited.

Maybe that wasn’t really the finally finally. Music. I’ll end with some music. I “found” the following piece, mentioned in an article I had been reading about some of the most sublime art ever made. I had never heard of it, or heard it. Now I’m listening to it over and over again so that it becomes part of my cellular structure.