Conquering the Inner Gorgon
I’ve been doing a lot of blind contour drawings, prompted mainly by the wonderful group activity instigated by Niff and Sutter over at Inkfinger … and that led naturally to doing some contour drawings with eyes wide open – looking at both the picture and the paper. This one was done in 2-3 minutes in the conventional way, trying to keep the penpoint on the paper at all times. The picture was chosen at random from a book – it’s Cellini’s sculpture of Perseus displaying the head of the gorgon Medusa. Medusa had the nasty habit of turning people to stone just with a look.
Only after I drew this did the underlying message and the synchronicity of my image choice become apparent. What is the Medusa but the Inner Critic who can turn creative enthusiasm to stone in the blink of an eye?
The inner critic sees the tentative pencil scratches on the paper. “You drew that? Better keep your day job.” Stone.
“Why are you wasting your time with this? Don’t you have something better to do?” Stone.
“You know, you’re really too old to try to learn anything new.” Stone, stone, stone.
The myth gives a very apt metaphor for dealing with such enemies, whether they are outer gorgons or those that lie within. With help of wisdom (Athena) and a magical mirror-like shield Perseus tracks down the Medusa in its den and catches it off guard. He never looks at it directly but uses a bit of subterfuge as he dispatches it. Me, I have my own style. My sword is a pen and it’s name is Practice. Like Perseus, I don’t argue with my medusa-critic or try to stare it down because I know such encounters can be fatal to the creative spirit. Instead, when I hear its snakes come hissing words of discouragement and defeat, I turn my attention back to the blank page and get busy. It can threaten all it wants but it can’t touch me. And one of these days I may finally have the strength to give it a mortal blow.
More drawings from the Simpsons Scoring Session
The contrabassoon player. I really liked your Hawaiian shirt. I’m not sure that it had palm fronds and hibiscus but I think most of them do, so I hope you won’t mind that I took liberties with your attire.
A trumpet player, sitting fairly far from me. I’m sorry it doesn’t look like you. About all I could see was that you had a beard. Your horn sounded very good, however.
Trombone artist. Same apologies. The bell of the bone was covering your face a lot of the time.
More inking, scanning and coloring of Moleskine drawings from the Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror music recording session.
I know they don’t look like Moleskines now, but that’s where they started.
If you didn’t see the previous drawings, scroll down to October 10 …
Drawing at the Simpsons’ Scoring Session
Yesterday we had the opportunity to be guests at the orchestral scoring session for the annual Simpsons’ “Treehouse of Horror” Halloween show with composer Alf Clausen, orchestrator Dell Hake and a roomful of tremendously gifted performers. We stayed for the entire morning session and loved every eerie, spine-tingling, rip-roaring moment. We were in the booth half of the time, which is a good distance from the orchestra, but we could still see through the glass.
I had looked forward to drawing the musicians but somehow portraying them ‘realistically’ just didn’t seem appropriate, given the subject matter. So I did it this way, instead. They were drawn in pencil first in my Moleskine … then inked onto tracing paper which was scanned and colorized in Photoshop. Getting likenesses was just about impossible considering that their faces were about as big as a thumbnail held at arms’ length, so I did what I could and ‘winged it’ for the rest. After one of the breaks we were allowed to go inside the recording stage with the musicians provided we didn’t make a sound (no dropping of pencils on the floor.) Since we have always been fans of the long-running series this was a real thrill for us. There’s something magical about being close to a large professional orchestra playing outstanding music to another very, very funny show. Set your TIVOS – don’t miss this one hour special.
I have some more drawings which I’ll post tomorrow or the next day – from the brass and woodwind sections.
Everyday Matters – Metal (but not new)
This week’s challenge is to draw something metal. I haven’t done a new painting or drawing specifically for the challenge, yet, but in the meantime here’s something from about a year ago.
It was drawn at a Tibetan exhibit at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, Calif. about a year ago, then painted later at home with watercolor, based on color notes I had made. (The museum did not want wet media in their exhibit)
This was painted on watercolor paper in a journal I made.
EDM Challenge – Something you made
Click image for larger
A drawing and recipe combo – a loaf of 9-grain bread … fresh from the oven. I bake the same way I cook – starting with a basic recipe and then improvising. The recipe is below, if you want to try it.
Soak 1/2 cup 9 grain cereal (granular, not flakes) in about 1/2 cup water
Do this about 45 min. before starting to bake.
1.5 cups warm water
1.5 teaspoons yeast
2 TBS molasses
(Mix all the above together in a big mixer bowl with a bread hook. Let it sit until the yeast activates.)
Add:
2.5 TBS soft butter
2 tsp. salt
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups white flour (add the flours a little at a time, beating with bread hook)
Finally, add the softened 9 grain cereal.
Add enough extra flour, bit by bit so that the dough forms a ball and starts to pull away smoothly from the sides of the bowl while beating.
Keep mixing with bread hook for at least 5 minutes, until the dough is smooth and glossy and the elastic-y gluten is well developed.
Turn the dough on a floured board and knead, keep adding a little more flour if it is sticky. Knead it in well.
Finally, put it in a greased bowl, covered with a cloth, in a warm place. Let it rise at least an hour, until doubled. Punch it down, divide into two pieces. Make a rectangle of each piece of dough, and shape into a loaf. Put it in a loaf pan and let it rise again, until double.
Bake at 350 degree oven for about 20 -30 minutes or until golden brown.
Let it set up about 15 minutes before slicing …. if you can resist.
