Outside the Lines

Our dining table has been getting lots of use this summer… but we rarely eat on it.  Instead, it’s usually covered in newspaper, plastic, tubes of paint, cups of brushes, rolls of paper towels, boxes of markers, all kinds of paper, crayons, pastels, pencils, charcoals, pens, glue, magazines, scissors, and any other art material we’re currently using.  What’s funny is that somewhere under all that stuff we still have a napkin holder and salt and pepper shakers, too.

We actually have an official art and music “studio” now (which was previously the girls’ playroom), but since it’s upstairs it’s just not as practical, at least for me.  I like to have easy access to my stuff, and the dining table is perfect.  It’s also just more of an intimate space where the three of us can sit together and work as a family.

This whole art business wasn’t always so complicated and space-consuming.  I used to have a few different-sized drawing pads, a handful of pencils and charcoals, a can of spray fixative–and that’s about it.  Easily stored in a bright red canvas art bag I got for free from a textbook vendor at work.

Over the years, though, I’ve started branching out to other mediums, and as a result my collection of art supplies has been expanding exponentially so that now I carry the “essentials” in an old pleather camera bag and store the rest in miscellaneous baskets when not in use.  Except lately it all seems to always be in use.

From pencils and charcoals I started experimenting with colored pencils.  I was never really comfortable using them until I heard this one artist talking about his technique for producing amazingly vibrant drawings: using colored pencil over a light marker wash.  The results are breathtaking–you can produce the same gradation and shading as with a pencil or charcoal, except with color.  And the marker layer can be replaced with watercolor for even more dramatic results.  This discovery was a spectacular breakthrough!  Having that kind of control over color gave me the courage to keep going.  I still consider myself a newbie when it comes to the use of color, but it’s actually fun to experiment now that I have that pencil-over-wash technique in my back pocket.

As for paint, oh, I’ve had a love-hate relationship with it ever since college.  It just takes so much time and so much effort to create something I’m satisfied with, whereas with pencil and charcoal the process is pretty much second-nature to me.  Paint is wet and gooey, sometimes runny, sometimes sticky.  Always so hard to control.  Watercolors are too light, acrylics dry way too fast for me, and oils require way too much maintenance.  I was happy to discover water-based oils, but even with those the drying time is paaaaiiiiiiinnnnffffffuuuuulllllllyyyyyy slow.  Still, when it comes to painting, those water-based oils have been my top choice.

Right now I’m in the middle of trying something completely new: layering using paint, paper, oil pastels, and possibly some fabric and other stuff as I come up with ideas.  So far it’s been a really great experience.  I’m more of a realist when it comes to my work, and this summer is the first time I’ve had any real success with creating something entirely out of my imagination.  My goal is to get into more of a combination abstract-realist zone, and I think with this layering bit I’m starting to move in that direction.

To be honest, the idea to branch out from just pencil and charcoal really came from the desire to possibly make my work a little more marketable.  I’ve always felt weird about the thought of producing art for money, as if the selling of it would cheapen it, you know?  But I don’t know… I think that as long as I keep creating pieces I love–keep loving the process itself–I won’t mind losing the pieces themselves to paying customers.  Really it’s not much different from giving away my work, which is what I’ve always done.  The people who buy my stuff will still enjoy it.  It’s just that I won’t really know them personally.   I can live with that.