tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21717071802474697662024-03-12T22:16:43.923-07:00AinoViewDoodleposts and commentaryAHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.comBlogger136125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-65941187924809728672017-08-09T10:09:00.002-07:002017-08-09T10:09:29.050-07:00Favourite Illustrator question: Where do you get your ideas?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Where do the ideas come from, you ask?<br />
<br />
In many cases, I deliberately lose myself in remembering a day from decades ago. Summers, especially, provide pockets of memory that are fresh whenever I visit. I wonder if this is because, as a child, I had a lot of time where I was free to occupy myself however I chose. <br />
<br />
Often I chose to get myself as close to the water's surface as I could. It was a whole other world there, under the surface.AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-6594097543191053342016-06-23T17:44:00.004-07:002016-06-23T17:49:29.439-07:00Doodling down the road.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Waiting on the phone, mind wandering, pen in hand. Small square stickit note on the desk in front of me...<br />
<br />
...and a character takes shape.<br />
<br />
The elevator music in my ear is interrupted and my attention snaps to the business at hand, the post-it doodle stuck on a note about something else.<br />
<br />
I come across this a month later and am struck by it. Hmmm.<br />
<br />
Some doodles have a life beyond the page. This little fellow seems to have been doing his own thing while I was not paying attention.<br />
<br />
Mulling this over, my eye falls on a small packet on the desk. I just received a shipment of paperclay.<br />
<br />
It seems such an odd thing to do - taking a cat for a stroll bobbing along on a string above the walker. And in 3-d, it has an improbable silliness beyond the drawing, as though it were more real somehow.<br />
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Now I am beginning to wonder where he is heading...<br />
<br />
...once around the block in my imagination is a long walk. I wonder where he'll turn up next?AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-76689808057405816042016-02-29T10:52:00.001-08:002016-02-29T10:57:35.510-08:00Dreamwings<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I remember only that I dreamed I was flying. I had never done that before. But this night, I felt my body lift off from the foot of our yard and float up above the yard, the street, the house... and while there, my intent was enough to move me - higher, and farther down the street. How beautiful, how peaceful it all looked from above, every detail of branch and leaf, pattern of roof tile and complexity of chimneys filling the hushed night scene below me.<br />
<br />
I may never fly again. But my body remembers how it feels, and I sigh in sympathy with every bird as it alights and folds its wings.AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-21265038023377129742016-02-09T06:39:00.003-08:002016-02-09T06:40:50.077-08:00Drawing on Memory<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Getting my work together for the SCBWI Childrens' Authors and Illustrators conference in New York this week.<br />
<br />
I've been looking over my portfolio for the past six months, deciding what needed replacing, and looking through more recent images for connections, strong energy.<br />
<br />
Considering which images appealed to me, and why, it occurred to me that what most tugged at me were images that drew on my own childhood memories - good or bad.<br />
<br />
As a member of a loud and busy family, at times I was busy adding to the noise while at other times I needed a quiet retreat. Focusing on what was right in front of me, the bustle of my surroundings would fade. I noticed how delicately beautiful the colours on an oily puddle seemed, walking down the street on a rainy day. These same colours swirled in the wonderful changing surface of soap bubbles we blew. And showed up again in the landscape of rich shades in an abalone shell, in the shine on a beetle, in the wings of a dragonfly. <br />
<br />
Taking a moment to really look at something creates this peaceful mental state even now. And considering all that needs to get done in the next 48 hours, this is a good thing.<br />
<br />
<br />AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-25093721101107078212016-01-27T09:18:00.002-08:002016-01-27T09:18:48.718-08:00Becoming Story, Uncovering Self<br />
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<br />
I draw darkness.<br />
<br />
The 4B pencil leaves a slick glide of graphite on my paper and I feel the damp air, cool with dew not yet fallen, clammy on my thin, child shoulders.<br />
<br />
I pause here, mind open. Behind me the infinity of dark forest, tall selves of trees shifting and whispering deeper darkness against the night sky above.<br />
<br />
My bare knees locked, toes dig into the gravel between rough patches of grass, looking for warmth from the earth under my feet.<br />
<br />
In front of me the paper sucks up lines and slowly becomes one with the heavy night air in my mind. In front of my shaking child-self, the door opens. A woman's arm bars the lamplight from within as it slides across the porch and down the dusty steps.<br />
<br />
I wait in the moon's cold glow.<br />
<br />
I am here forever.AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-47014831503125119222015-11-23T10:08:00.002-08:002015-11-23T10:08:36.419-08:00Growing and Idea Fom the Ground Up<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When pencil hits paper, sometimes it's nice to just let the point wander, doodle aimlessly and see where you end up. At other times, the memory of a moment or the quirk of a facial expression in the mind's eye insists on becoming more.<br />
More tangible, more rounded - and when I spend time with that thought, I find more accrues around the point of the pencil and more still until there is a character and the pencil is tracing the line of something which - when followed, becomes story.<br />
<br />
Here are some moments which grew out of childhood memories - of making things with zeal and determination, lots of tape and a very little idea of HOW to make the thing at hand. - of the slope of a hillside falling away in front of me and the vista of possibilities all there, waiting to be set in motion. - of handstand competitions among siblings, of waiting, waiting waiting... (oh, being a kid involved so MUCH waiting) and best of all, the hug of someone always ready to join in and take at least half the blame.<br />
<br />
The story and the thumbnails are all developing at the same pace, and are becoming a book dummy.<br />
A few of the finished illustrations were entered - and accepted - into this year's CANSCAIP Illustrators Art Exhibit held for two weeks around the Packaging Your Imagination seminar day at Humber College just a week or so ago. AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-74780359346241257342015-09-24T10:26:00.003-07:002015-09-24T10:26:36.267-07:00A good day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAHtE7-oMF6icFoN9AesJB-5PTWYf4UbueHg4ZVs5cMjtBVhc6Mam__MsHL_jLelZuGRYMaQ91j7bIO4EWTW9TE_JyswGc8gybkAa9Z2oAhHASZ2D0g8oBt5qSVrKFi1eK8fq-7lTNTwCy/s1600/FindYourSong.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAHtE7-oMF6icFoN9AesJB-5PTWYf4UbueHg4ZVs5cMjtBVhc6Mam__MsHL_jLelZuGRYMaQ91j7bIO4EWTW9TE_JyswGc8gybkAa9Z2oAhHASZ2D0g8oBt5qSVrKFi1eK8fq-7lTNTwCy/s400/FindYourSong.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Working away, developing drawings in support of a lyrical text but today I run into a roadblock. From a quick sketch that has the right feel but the wrong proportions, I redraw and redraw again. Every iteration pulls farther and farther from the vision I hold in my mind.<br />
<br />
Taking a break for lunch.<br />
<br />
Regardless of the one-step-forward-two-steps-back kind of day this happens to be, any day where you can find time to do something you love and enjoy the feel of the sun on your face is a good, good day.AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-28242118488715069062015-09-16T10:49:00.003-07:002015-09-16T12:12:14.147-07:00Making friends - Tiny Friends, that is. Pocket Dolls.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When I was small, I loved tiny toys. the kind that would fit in your palm or pocket and when Kiddles were the big thing, I craved one with every fibre of my being. My neighbour had a whole collection. My best friend up the street had a few, but I only wanted one. Just one. And when one was finally mine, the sheer delight of it eclipsed everything else... and at this distance I cannot recall who gave it to me. It was most likely my Godmother, since she was one of the few people who would ask what I wanted for my birthday and who bought me something new. In our large family, most toys and clothes were handed down. I had two regular sized dolls, both passed on from a friend who no longer wanted them. Two!? How could one properly love and play with TWO dolls, much less give them away!? I felt vaguely guilty at how fiercely I loved one when the other was tumbled upside-down among the bedclothes or blocks, and wondered if the dolls themselves minded. I thought they might.<br />
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So when dollmaking crept in to my imagination as an adult, it was always with the idea of something tiny. Something you could slip into a pocket, take along in a car, and where if you had three or four of them, they could all be played with at once, a whole adventure of dolls. (I'm pretty sure if you look it up, you will find that is the term for a gathering of more than one doll.)<br />
<br />
I began with one. A prototype. Loved all 3 1/2 inches of her, from her touseled blue hair and smudged nose to her tiny unformed turned-in toes. And she was so special a little thing that I put her safely by until I could make her a friend. My children have learned to dread it when I say I have put something they ask for in "a safe place". It means they may not see that thing again for a good, long while. And so it is with Doll One. Onesie is safely snoozing somewhere. Snug and secret. So I made Twosie. She had no hair. I simply could not decide what colour her hair should be. But she had a wide, sunny smile and a bright yellow dress to match. She seemed so HAPPY I had made her. And although she stood beaming at me under my lamp, watching me work for a long while, eventually she must have gone off to find her friend, because she disappeared. I know one day while turning out a drawer or unfolding tissue from around some precious thing in a box, I will find the two of them making up stories, telling dollie secrets and enjoying themselves wonderfully together.<br />
<br />
But I was still without dolls.<br />
<br />
And I had a craft show to attend.<br />
<br />
So I sat down with fabric and my weensy template and drew out a whole dozen dollies of different colours. And I stitched, stuffed, painted and stitched some more. I took three along on the drive to the craft show, stitching their hair on the highway between Toronto and Kingston as the early sun barely cleared the dashboard, and four more the week later, who came downtown with me to an artisanal store here in Toronto where others like me have brought work together to be sold.<br />
<br />
And again, I have no dolls.<br />
<br />
So I'm stitching again. Making Tiny Friends to send out into the world in their little matchbox beds to make friends and make magic in quiet hours and hushed corners - or possibly get up to zany tricks and antics in circuses they cause to happen around them. I wish I knew.<br />
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<br />AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-29183935539779451912015-08-31T18:01:00.000-07:002015-08-31T18:01:11.026-07:00Unfinished but not abandoned<br />
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August 31, 2015<br />
<br />
Today's doodle, photographed and posted on Facebook bobs up in my mind. Twirls lazily in the mental current and glints invitingly. I know what it is about, this bottle whose contents entice and yet bring reluctance...<br />
<br />
...it is a memory. 19 years old, of a kettle rinsed, and a boy just two, demanding both it and a tea-towel. And rubbing industriously. Sometimes action is needed to help thoughts gather, become solid, so I don't interfere too soon, but eventually I ask - why all that rubbing, when the kettle is clean and dry by now? My older son replies very seriously: "It is to give the genie a chance to come out. Like knocking on his door."<br />
<br />
Ah. In that flash between the boy rubbing a kettle and his words falling on my ear, a story falls into my head. About how we become. And how we lose some of what we could be, over time. And possibly, tenuously, how we might regain some of what we have lost, to be our whole selves. Or more whole selves. Perhaps.<br />
<br />
I said to my son: well. That gives me an idea. Quite a story, in fact.<br />
<br />
He laid aside the tea-towel, kettle resting on his Osh-Kosh little legs and asks: Can I have that story? Is it mine, because I gave it to you?<br />
<br />
Yes, son, of course. It is your story.<br />
<br />
And now, 19 years later and rolling around in my mind, first draft in the back of a drawer for years already, it is more relevant and more his than ever.<br />
<br />
And it comes out in doodles. In flashes of memory, bits of insight where I realize WHY something I wrote had to be so indeed. <br />
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And possibly, even, what might come next.<br />
<br />
Although, as with most really good stories, that part is never certain until you read it.<br />
<br />
<br />AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-43004001131330261782015-06-13T03:08:00.005-07:002015-06-13T03:08:41.683-07:00Dream of Flying - Fleeing Mice - WIP for Toronto Art Crawl Liberty Village Sat Jun 13 11-6<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Couldn't sleep. Got up over an hour before my nice, early alarm because my toes were dancing and my mind was already well on its way to today's buzzzz at the Art Crawl in Liberty Village. <br />
<br />
These last few days I've enjoyed filling out my display with small pieces, sketchbook images growing into paintings. This one just made me grin - and got all kinds of music playing in my mind. (And the first person who tells me the name of the song in my head wins a prize.)<br />
<br />
The idea - of being able to just lift into the air and leave problems behind - is an age-old daydream. Trouble is, your problems might just be able to do the same thing... and then, if you are fat little mice, you look like this:<br />
<br />
Come down and say hi if you can. I'll be the grin behind the table at the corner of Liberty and Pirandello.<br />
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Hope you all have a fabulous day.AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-61986896340228886162015-06-10T04:07:00.003-07:002015-06-10T04:07:54.433-07:00I.F. - Airborne - A Dream of Flying - Work in Progress - Prep for Liberty Village Art Crawl outdoor show June 13<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAQLJBooQ4gnd2kWl0YDYNJm5k_guidvO_Ver39omkZ6FHPGdeWhRTr-gFjSxMg3JNLK2A3fgc3WXDgH1GlxAeq7x5ynjMZ12yQUgVb11jdYz52uvmU-rpE7ZQmi5YTUUyqq5nQKLqN-Ih/s1600/DreamOfFlying003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAQLJBooQ4gnd2kWl0YDYNJm5k_guidvO_Ver39omkZ6FHPGdeWhRTr-gFjSxMg3JNLK2A3fgc3WXDgH1GlxAeq7x5ynjMZ12yQUgVb11jdYz52uvmU-rpE7ZQmi5YTUUyqq5nQKLqN-Ih/s320/DreamOfFlying003.jpg" width="264" /></a></div>
I clearly recall the sensation of lift and wonder that comes with a dream of flying. The bliss with which it colours the day after waking. The sense of possibilities, endless and unknown which I carry around with me to this day, a gift from that dream. <br />
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Night washing away in the dawn is yet part of the dreamer, the flier. AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-31458585377485895452015-05-22T10:57:00.001-07:002015-05-22T10:57:48.227-07:00What's this painting about?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSIIrw-6CO5UkN6V3jojbwmE1-KXd9kh6U2FO1ExZ8hmor2wH1bt6AR0Alb0eRHEBMliuHJArCJIVqHBs7DUnGemtQULgeON9dfyS056SayrUlyJ5Ckn6O0Ym8r5JMCEziKHwT-QSD-rLn/s1600/IMG_20150522_134525_477.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSIIrw-6CO5UkN6V3jojbwmE1-KXd9kh6U2FO1ExZ8hmor2wH1bt6AR0Alb0eRHEBMliuHJArCJIVqHBs7DUnGemtQULgeON9dfyS056SayrUlyJ5Ckn6O0Ym8r5JMCEziKHwT-QSD-rLn/s320/IMG_20150522_134525_477.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
I am often perplexed when someone asks me what a painting is about,<br />
what it means, or what I am saying. Just as the words I choose to express an idea will more or less frame and colour the fluid thought I have in mind, so they will be heard and interpreted differently by every listener, depending on context, history, perceived tone and expression; a myriad different interpretations.<br />
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And beyond that, other than direct illustrations in response to a concrete text, paintings which I create may begin with a line or shape and thereafter take on a meaning different every time I work on them and holding each of these references for me while perhaps having none of these for the viewer.<br />
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So unless we have a lot of time - and I mean A LOT - to discuss all these various themes, histories and nuances given the lines, colours and shapes that appear, go ahead and tell me what sort of response YOU have to a piece. Really. Go ahead. No response is unacceptable. And let's go from there. AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-48958282475666120872015-05-19T13:00:00.000-07:002015-05-19T13:00:13.147-07:00Home Stretch - Kensington Market Art Fair May 31<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2171707180247469766" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>On my worktable just now... Countdown is in the final two weeks. This is when it is the MOST fun (until adrenaline takes over on the day of, at least) because in my mind, just at present, everything I dream I will do is still possible. I have not yet run out of time to get every vision on to canvas and out the door.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirF3j1z6oi92fo9zoJDogbNm0emdYvLQMXtMXoVFXEUCJI3sDQC1RSZAdzFLemx0oazCPCOQSuo7lhwFAVDrOdDlKqGkfvpDVUcvHmkwkA6WJxVlljOLJv4mffiXP4FOScCBLGDkYo8uZz/s1600/SketchbookTrioPaint.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirF3j1z6oi92fo9zoJDogbNm0emdYvLQMXtMXoVFXEUCJI3sDQC1RSZAdzFLemx0oazCPCOQSuo7lhwFAVDrOdDlKqGkfvpDVUcvHmkwkA6WJxVlljOLJv4mffiXP4FOScCBLGDkYo8uZz/s400/SketchbookTrioPaint.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All happening at once. I can just imagine the conversations they are having when I step away for a moment.</td></tr>
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AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-5594931963387315852015-05-10T06:05:00.000-07:002015-05-10T06:05:44.867-07:00Accumulation and Dispersal<br />
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<br />
My sketchbooks have been developing over the years; layers laid upon layers of thought as pages left unfinished are revisited and the progression of ideas slowly accumulate into an image.<br />
<br />
I have long wanted to find a home for these ideas outside of the sketchbook; somewhere they could be seen outside of these pages, perhaps find someone who might want to take one home and live with it. An art director asked for a few for a magazine a while ago now, but I wanted to see them in a home, breathing among someone's possessions, glimpsed in the busy schedule of other's lives and thoughs.<br />
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When a friend mentioned the Kensington Market Art Fair and its upcoming dates over this summer, I began to feel that this corner of the city and intersection of personalities might be a good place to encounter people who would enjoy these sorts of works.<br />
<br />
So now I am engaged in making some pieces ready for printing while developing unique works from the ideas laid out in others. I tend to work in black and white in my sketchbooks, so the question of colour is a big one. The difference in voice from 17 inches across to 3 feet... An interesting series of options with which to wrestle.<br />
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If you happen to be in Toronto Sunday May 31, come down to Kensington and look for the babble, the white tents, see how the wrestling matches turned out. AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-22237681317096812412015-04-14T13:46:00.003-07:002015-04-14T13:46:34.120-07:00Conducting a Picture Book<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When I pick up a book it is usually because the cover has invited me. With colour and words, mood and promise the cover has called and I have answered. Once open in my hands, though, a picture book turns into music. <br />
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I first became aware of this while at the Bologna Book Fair many years ago. Overwhelmed by the visual noise, the candy-shop quality of books at every turn, I wandered, found quiet corners and book after book after book. Every one of them had appeal. Strengths. Serious quality. But one after another I put them down. Over and over again. I had come to the ultimate book lover's feast and I intended to carry home with me only the irresistible. <br />
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Books from other cultures in other alphabets and scripts, some in more familiar languages, even those in English, as I turned the pages my mind began a melody - a tinkly version of twinkle twinkle little star, as if played on a music box, or the whole shebang, cannons and all, of Beethoven's Eroica - a lilt, a whoosh, a quiet whisper of lullaby - they all sang in my hands. And yet...<br />
<br />
...some books were ALL cymbals. One or two were missing the whole Bassoon section, all twiddly flutes and basso profundo but like a doughnut without a filling. And so it went. I carried my little map everywhere and filled it with symbols for each booth visited: What was the mood, the tone, the feel of each one? And everywhere I opened the books and heard music.<br />
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Now, many years later in my sunny studio I open a folder and pull out a page of thumbnails. I've read the text many times, made notes and scribbled numbers in the margins. The thumbnails on my desk now are a map of the music the words are making in my mind. Do I hear inviting themes echoing playfully in different registers? (Thank you Mozart, Bach and Clementi). Are the voices all represented, supporting one-another - or have I left someone home with laryngitis? (Handel, you rock!) Is there room for the reader to chuckle, a sense of play? (Queen, definitely) Does everything come together meaningfully toward the end? (Ah, Stan Rogers and his White Squall!)...and does the ending leave you at a pause, a breath, and ready to open it at the beginning and start the music all over again? (Lhasa da Sela, you are now star music yourself, but your Con Toda Palabra still plays in a sure and steady loop...)<br />
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These are greats, and in their context my drawings feel more like a fife and drum duet or a playground chant but still, as long as I hear the melodies made by words and images telling a story, so long I will work erasing and adding lines, experimenting and failing and trying again... until something I have made is exactly the right melody for the words. Until the closing of the last page invites the book be opened from the first page again. And again.<br />
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These above are opening thumbnails for an exercise I did recently. I enjoy their musicality, their promise. At the moment the thumbnails I am researching and developing are a different kind of music altogether - the music of moonlit ripples on a night pond. The echoes of memory as they weave themselves into a future. The promise of eggs as yet unhatched. When the images on my table in front of me looks like the music I hear in my mind, I will know I am done.<br />
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Cue the conductor...AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-66860985055399054862014-12-28T06:09:00.001-08:002014-12-28T06:09:04.529-08:00So Much To Do<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So much to do this time of year, once the dust settles, hard to tell how many of these come from the heart, how many are duties pressed upon us by custom. So when one more thing to do appears on the horizon, it might be that, minds already occupied with things grabbing at our attention and for our time, we are less open to possibilities than we might otherwise be.<br />
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I believe this character needs to grasp something lovely with every bit of the mind, and, in a more open state of mind see what that is that is catching up and asking for attention.AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-375170992034692712014-10-21T06:41:00.000-07:002014-10-21T06:41:04.609-07:00Sketchbook - Music Sweep<h2 style="text-align: left;">
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Music heard invites us to step into the landscape it creates as it unwinds, unrolls, explodes... <br /><br /><span></span>
Making music takes the mind on a wander, half our senses involved in
the technical, adding to the waterfall of sounds. The other half
responds, the conscious suggesting new directions, the unconscious
making connections to memory and imagination, opening doors and windows
to a sweep of fresh experience in the mind. <br /><br /><span></span>Improvisation
multiplies the inrush of experience, and improvisation in collaboration
with others makes for an exponential explosion in which musician as
creator and listener is danced away to places he might otherwise never
reach.</div>
AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-32187049519302774042014-10-14T18:06:00.000-07:002014-10-14T18:06:00.825-07:00Sketchbook - Shame<h2 style="text-align: left;">
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First
lines on the page seemed inward-facing, reminded me of how much
sometimes as a teen one just wants to be invisible, to pull one's being away from the visible world and disappear from view. <br /><br /><span>This girl is wishing it so hard she's beginning to disappear at the edges.</span></div>
AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-36048492531296726492014-09-30T10:20:00.002-07:002014-09-30T10:20:58.195-07:00Sketchbook - Hammerhead
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I'm so very thankful that I can draw... because if I were to try and put this thought into words, well... </div>
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Even now, long after completing this in my sketchbook (and earlier than that, it was a loose ink doodle in yet ANOTHER sketchbook) well... </div>
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That's kind of where words run out. At... well...</div>
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When you look at this image and something specific you're doing comes to mind, well.... ...stop. </div>
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AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-90721451815117877082014-09-24T14:07:00.000-07:002014-09-24T14:07:10.103-07:00Sketchbook - A Sea of Eyes <span style="clear: left; float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-top: 0px; position: relative; z-index: 10;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2171707180247469766"><img alt="Picture" class="wsite-image galleryImageBorder" src="http://www.antostudio.com/uploads/2/8/9/0/2890445/242081.jpg?538" style="border-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 3px;" /></a></span>
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When I draw without a preset theme, the drawing comes out of an inner
space and brings something of that with it - but I have found over the
years that the reverse is true also: while drawing, the surrounding
scene with its noises and energies is somehow captured intensely in
memory, and each sketchpage and doodle, when opened, opens those
snapshots as well - here what is visible is an ocean of impressions and
observations - a question: what will fit? What will become? and memory
fills in a sunny afternoon on a neighbour's back porch, children coming
and going, the sun searing the blank page a blinding white. <br /><br /><span>I
have doodles on lined paper squeezed into the margins of notes taken
years ago. They bring to mind the dim upstairs feel of Mr. Baxter's gr.
12 French class. The colourless tiled floor. Joe on one side, Wayne
on the other. Good friends. Worth remembering. </span>AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-61672795690820965872014-09-16T16:27:00.002-07:002014-09-16T16:27:21.955-07:00Developing Idea - Sketchbook pages<span style="clear: left; float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-top: 0px; position: relative; z-index: 10;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2171707180247469766"><img alt="Picture" class="wsite-image galleryImageBorder" src="http://www.antostudio.com/uploads/2/8/9/0/2890445/8005943.jpg?538" style="border-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 3px;" /></a></span>
I
had kept a sketchbook, lugging it from class to class in high school but
the habit had lapsed when I acquired other duties and things to carry
and ran out of hands for the sketchbook. It dawned on me that I missed
the process. So a few years ago I picked up the technical pens and pen
and ink I had used for the earlier sketchbooks and creaked open the
cover of a new book - not knowing what direction it would take. <br /><span></span><br /><span>I
decided only one thing, to begin with: that I would continue working on
each spread until it expressed a unified thought or theme - no matter
how obscure. </span>New pages were unnerving, at first. A sweep of
line would break the page and then - ? I began to approach each page
with the same general thought: Now let's see... and I was hooked. <br /><br /><span></span>I
began to feel pulled by a work in progress, left on the table, pen
beside the open book. Whatever the mind was chewing over, seems that
was somehow being digested on paper. I began to savour the way a
drawing developed slowly, dragging thoughts with it, developing a mental
space internally as the drawing emerged on paper over days and weeks.
Some drawings didn't seem worthy of further work - a doodle, the moment,
not needing digesting or developing. Others were left unfinished for
days or months - I had no idea what to do next with them - and may be in
that state today, still waiting. Others, when I flipped open a page,
suddenly I could see just what was needed next - and the pull returned.
<br /><br /><span></span>I<span>'ll post them in the order that they appear
in the sketchbooks, but undated - as they have grown over a hopscotch
of timelines, some images surging to the page in a rush of hours drawn
from a busy life in the course of a few days, others developing almost
despite me, across years. </span><br /><br /><span>I enjoy comments and questions and look forward to hearing from you</span>AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-34826544159761274062014-09-05T08:15:00.002-07:002014-09-05T08:15:43.237-07:00Doodle Journey<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicx66DoO3U4er1CBoM4-eyKu1eaiWKl9VNv9Fho1Uoc3NByC-t6eFHPHyJ1oxljRYqtx-yM3YJRZ7fYPFivMIPqfuwEjvpYUqB3CbOk_HNMUFJJZmePzWQdFzrEQT5AY0tt9ytQnig13LK/s1600/DoodlesSept14001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicx66DoO3U4er1CBoM4-eyKu1eaiWKl9VNv9Fho1Uoc3NByC-t6eFHPHyJ1oxljRYqtx-yM3YJRZ7fYPFivMIPqfuwEjvpYUqB3CbOk_HNMUFJJZmePzWQdFzrEQT5AY0tt9ytQnig13LK/s1600/DoodlesSept14001.jpg" height="266" width="320" /></a></div>
A page of raw doodles. Who knows where they will end up, what life they will take on one day?<br />
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I'm always doodling. Especially when I am listening intently to someone speaking. I have doodles that go all the way back to high school and beyond. Sometimes I doodle when I want to let my mind off the leash, and as it wanders through landscapes of colours and textures, the pen moves.<br />
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Usually a pen. Back in grade school wherever I went, I would always have a stack of newsprint and a ball point pen. Any spare moment out they would come and doodles would happen. Lines would begin light and sketchy, growing darker as I decided on a final path and committed a dark deep line on the surface of the paper that gave way in such a satisfying way. <br />
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Thinking back, that deep, dark line behind the pen felt a little like planting in my garden does now. Seating the line or plant deeply leaves it in a good place. Who knows, maybe those doodles when I was seven and eight have rooted and are bearing their fruit now on every sort of surface around me?<br />
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Some days the doodles are just a lifeless collection of lines. Those sit a while and then get tossed. The lively ones, the doodles that seem to breathe, have a life before and after I made them, they stick in the mind. <br />
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These days, the lively doodles are finding their way onto and into different forms of creation.<br />
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Curly toes have become a series of satin-lined baby slippers. Cheery monsters have morphed into huggable pillows in fuzzy fleeces and lively colours. Lanky critters have spawned a series of big-footed floppy bunnies made from hand-felted old wool sweaters - some were mine, some have been found in used clothing shops, and now they know I am interested, shamefaced friends have begun hauling out accidentally-felted sweaters in gorgeous colours, apologetically offering them to me, since they are too lovely to throw out...<br />
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I see all kinds new ways for these doodles to take on a life beyond the paper. I seem to wake with new ideas every day. Hours are filled with developing new ideas, making up doodles already destined for some purpose, and the house is filling up with work in progress, materials destined for a project, and finished work. In between, around and through all this, family life continues - albeit in a more colourful, doodle-filled way every day.<br />
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If you want to see work as it is happening and would like to put in a comment, do visit on my creative Facebook page: ThePlayfulEye. Work that is ready for sale is posted in my Etsy shop: www.ThePlayfulEye.etsy.com<br />
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And comments here, of course, are welcome as always. AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-31111155887696783772014-07-18T04:00:00.002-07:002014-09-16T16:31:00.853-07:00Winter Dreams<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLDvPs5U4BdrHGGYIbnNnk52NSZbzKyd5PLrTgT-gZFtYks6NFvl8ICYFSvYQA941HABaGKEMmPXqCwrUNBG9QX4TvdUC2MKgzn2d0L1X2rnyODQIOed3cmAWGDJedo8RR6U6GY033WfU0/s1600/JLCoverResize.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLDvPs5U4BdrHGGYIbnNnk52NSZbzKyd5PLrTgT-gZFtYks6NFvl8ICYFSvYQA941HABaGKEMmPXqCwrUNBG9QX4TvdUC2MKgzn2d0L1X2rnyODQIOed3cmAWGDJedo8RR6U6GY033WfU0/s1600/JLCoverResize.jpg" height="400" width="290" /></a></div>
Deep in the mad scramble of preparing for my first foray into art/craft show territory, with the house around me filling with art and crafts for sale on the one hand and undisturbed clutter on the other, a phone call: was I available for a rush assignment?<br />
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Why yes, yes I was.<br />
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After all, they do say a change is as good as a rest, and waking up repeatedly at 4 a.m. feeling I should get up and make something was beginning to wear me down a little.<br />
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Here's the third iteration of the design, once I got the final dimensions confirmed. Colour version anon.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxdvqTURXbokdmaBBV_euAFfG8OWHRRvhBGqIIos9ZhPKhovS5HVmSalLAes93u79O-0D5K2-1oCIIAAZdKjSjL-YfsrGcGL6Vj8Ol3T6df00yawl_e2n64ZrZ8DKtInv6eMd9-lO4GDdK/s1600/RaccoonEatsColour.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxdvqTURXbokdmaBBV_euAFfG8OWHRRvhBGqIIos9ZhPKhovS5HVmSalLAes93u79O-0D5K2-1oCIIAAZdKjSjL-YfsrGcGL6Vj8Ol3T6df00yawl_e2n64ZrZ8DKtInv6eMd9-lO4GDdK/s1600/RaccoonEatsColour.jpg" height="320" width="214" /></a></div>
So far so good, changes to be made were outlined, and among them a better look at the raccoon. So here he is in colour. Book comes out next month, I"ll post the full cover then.<br />
<br />AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-80468286673869093752014-02-26T08:50:00.002-08:002014-02-26T08:50:15.259-08:00Unexpected Find<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoN1Ci8PL4mVZnwEgOgw3Gu6TSOknHYamC0_mQeMkYby-9RV6bFh5AZ7n0OkIH1PtCitOKk3MT6ILZC7bHZ2rCV202ywpA9Z143YWp_2Xqdm5t5YRLy8TTV8aa-ZgCbMEK9pqUgKzL8kLO/s1600/MoustacheCaterpillar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoN1Ci8PL4mVZnwEgOgw3Gu6TSOknHYamC0_mQeMkYby-9RV6bFh5AZ7n0OkIH1PtCitOKk3MT6ILZC7bHZ2rCV202ywpA9Z143YWp_2Xqdm5t5YRLy8TTV8aa-ZgCbMEK9pqUgKzL8kLO/s1600/MoustacheCaterpillar.jpg" height="400" width="275" /></a></div>
Developed originally for the Kids and Moustaches series this guy has grown on me more and more.<br />
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He used to have a lot more hair, but his older brother and sister told him he had no luck birdwatching because he had such big hair it scared them away. So out came the scissors.<br />
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He may not have had much more luck birdwatching, but out there on a limb he did find SOMEthing...<br />
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<br />AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2171707180247469766.post-44925965293755044742013-11-16T07:49:00.001-08:002013-11-16T07:50:28.545-08:00Geat Uncle Moustache Nov 16I remember the fascination I felt as a tot, of a family member with a moustache. Other kids we drawn to glasses, but the whiskers were the big question imy mind. This was new. And unlike glasses, didn't get taken off. What was it, and WHY was it ?AHAviewshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00143467149327284907noreply@blogger.com0