Crisis averted.

I found it! I found it!

A week of mild anxiety is now behind me. A second, more thorough, search of the closet-of-boxes has unearthed my beloved sketch book. I knew it had to be somewhere within the confines of our home, but that didn't make me any less unhappy about not being able to find it. Perhaps, now that half the contents of the boxes are strewn around the guest room, this will motivate me to finish unpacking all my crap, 7 months after the move.

Now that I am once again in possession of the seminal collection of my pieces, I can really get to the meat of this blogging project. And I'm going to start with what I think is my favorite one, and the first entry into one of the sub genres of my attempts at drawing - doodles gone mad.

Every so often, I'll start a doodle that becomes self perpetuating. It'll start with some shape, usually. A circle, a square, an amorphous blob. Then I'll repeat it, maybe next to it maybe larger and enclosing the first one. And then I'll continue to repeat it, adding variations. It's no longer a circle, instead it's an oval, or a squished oval, or the old standby amorphous blob. Before I know it, I've imposed some loose set of "rules" on it. "It's gotta be an enclosed shape, not crossing any of the others on the page. There should be a minimum and a maximum space allowed between each one. One shape may enclose another." Etc.

99% of the time, I end up with some stupid doodle that hangs around for a while and eventually gets tossed. But on occasion I'll step back from it and it strikes me as interesting enough to keep. This one was exemplary. Mind you, I was paying little to no attention to the overall shape of this thing. I was actually probably thinking I would eventually fill the whole page. But I got to this point and it just felt done. I really wish I could take more credit for it, but, as you may have gathered, I can't really draw. So the best I can hope for is the lucky happenstance of a doodle with an interesting structure ending up in an equally interesting overall form.

Sorry for the large full size image on this one, but I think it deserves the detail.

Painting in Motion

http://rinpaeshidan.jp/works/index.html

If I may sidetrack for a moment to a topic other than, well, me, and update the mission statement for this experiment. I can't draw, but other people can. Draw, paint, sculpt, and generally art (I'm declaring art a verb). This is the first of what are sure to be many links to artistic projects that pique my interest. The kinds of things I wish I could doing if dude could draw.

I particularly enjoy "PUZZLE", though I haven't watched them all yet.

On the verge of tragedy

I can't find my sketch pad, the one with some of my favorite drawings. I haven't seen it since the move. Last night I tore through the closet and opened every single box. I excavated the box with all the stuff that was on the same shelf as the sketch book in the old place and it's not there. I'm going to be pretty damned upset if it doesn't turn up.

In the mean time, here's a disturbing little creature for you. Lord knows what prompted this. Note my trademark terrible shading and deformed hands. Poor thing's got a thumb on his left hand where his pinkie should be. Never mind the wrist-mounted digit on the right. Yikes.

You'll hear from my lawyes, Jhonen Vasquez

Flash forward what I presume was several weeks. Armed with scores of fool-proof Mark Kistler techniques for instant 3-d effect at my disposal (foreshortening in action!), there was no stopping me. Every book cover I owned was scrawled with snaking stacks of lopsided 3-d tables, 3 dimensional shapes lit from all directions, oblique houses littered with extra doors and windows. I'm sure I went through reams of paper.

This is the most spectacular surviving artifact of that era. I can't remember for certain, but I'm presuming the house was my starting point since I doubt I've ever gone from drawing something curvy to drawing something so orthogonal on a large doodle. Always from straight lines to chaos.

Next step would definitely have been the roof appendages. A couple rings around the corners and we're off. This ones got everything! Concave, convex, rocket power!

I don't know. I think I like this one.

Sloppy birthday

I was going to start this party off with a selection from a pad of random drawings that span some time between elementary school and Jr. High. Some of them I actually like, believe it or not. It does happen. But when I went to find it, I discovered that it apparently never got unpacked after we moved.

In searching, I uncovered a treasure trove. In 5th grade, a classmate's parent came in for several weeks to give some basic drawing lessons. Actually, in violation of several laws I'm sure, she photocopied lessons from a book (specifically, a book by Mark Kistler, whose PBS show I've since seen) and went through them with us. It was great fun.

But, as you might have guessed by now, I suck. Which I didn't really mind. The things we were drawing were simple enough that even bad results were still results. But even then I could tell I was bad. With step-by-step instructions in front of me, and all the drawing paper I could ever need...well, ladies and gentleman, what you see is my best most earnest attempt at a birthday cake (Click here or on the pic for full size suckitude).

Some might tell me to not be so hard on myself. I was, afterall, only 11. And hey, it's not even all that bad, it's got style and flare. As to the latter, that's not style and flare. That implies intent. I certainly did not intend for my cake to have been baked by a retarded monkey, nor could I hope to reproduce said style and flare if I tried. Which brings me back to the former point namely that I just drew this. Right now, in the middle of composing this post. And yes, I tried. I tried hard.

I even whipped out the actual Mark Kistler birthday cake lesson, and came up with this gem. Didn't even bother decorating that one! 18 years later and look at my progression! And sadly, these kinds of rudimentary 3-d things are my favorite thing to doodle. So it's not like I haven't had practice over those 18 years.

So there you have it. Thanks for visiting. This one sketch pad I found is good for a dozen more posts at least, that's before I even find my favorite one. And I promise, I'll post the stuff I like too, I don't intend this to be all about me beating myself up. I'm really over the fact that I can't draw worth crap, but it hasn't stopped me from trying!

Is it lame to call this "First Post"?

Hello and welcome. I'll try to keep this brief, which you'll learn, if you stick around, is highly out of character for me.

This blog serves no particular purpose other than to amuse me. I certainly hope that by extension it amuses someone else too.

As you might have gleaned by now, I can't draw. Now, I'm not fishing for pity here. I really couldn't care less that I can't draw. I accepted that fact long ago. But if I'm going to be posting this stuff, I'm doing so with full disclosure. You've been warned.

A word on the format and content, I expect this to be a mixed bag. I'm sure I'll start off by dredging up the handful of drawings from my elementary school and jr. high days that I've kept around. Those are very dear to me, they're a good cross section of my drawing disabilities. But I also plan to post some new stuff, maybe even challenge myself to increase my drawing output. I'll probably end up posting a photo here and there, an art form I'm much more suited to, though I'll have to be careful not to get lazy and let this slip into being a photo blog. But mostly I'll be posting a photo or scan of something I've drawn and talking about it. That's it, nothing fancy.

All that said, it's not as if I hate everything I draw. Like a million monkeys a million typewriters, or perhaps like one monkey on a million typewriters, or even a million monkeys on one typewriter, something accidentally comes out pretty okay. And if I keep up the postings, you might actually see that at one time I was down right adequate at copying drawings (not tracing, but looking at and copying freehand). But by and large, I have very little conscious control over how one of my drawings comes out.

Thanks for visiting, and...you've been warned.

And see what I mean about brevity?