Thursday, May 5, 2011

The Process


I don't know about you, but I really like to look at works in progress. I like to see the process and the bones of a drawing or painting before its skin is all properly arranged.

And you can see that I really have been working on the project, not just taking your precious objects and hoarding them like Scrooge McDuck.

The one I'm working on here is a Shaquille O'Neale basketball card. I was a little intimidated by this one because it's flat and small and something that would never have occurred to me to draw. But that's the beauty of outsourcing all the thinking to my audience. It turned out well and I have a new and deeper relationship to Shaq than I ever expected.

Pardon a little digression, but since I'm talking about process I'd like to explain that relationship a little.

Whenever I draw anything, or anyone, it changes my relationship with my subject. I look at it/him/her so carefully and so objectively that I start to feel a love and connection with whatever it is. Its like meditating. There is a compassion that comes from being fully present with someone or something. Usually this kind of concentration is hard for me. In drawing I am at least fully connected to the surface of a person or thing.

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