Drawing conclusions « Little Red Hen Studio

Drawing conclusions

Of comic significance

I experienced a lovely incidence of happenstance on Friday during my lunch break, while I was browsing at an arts bookshop. The assistant asked if I needed help, and on a whim, I asked for books on comics. I used to draw/write comics and have been thinking about them lately. “This one’s good but it’s a little wordy”, said the assistant, pointing at Douglas Wolk’s Reading Comics. I had to laugh cause I knew the author back when I lived in New York, and this was pretty much my experience: good, wordy.

We were talking on the phone one evening and since I was cooking some chili, I said, hey, why not come on by and we’ll talk while we eat. The conversational agenda was pretty much entirely indie rock (it was the early ’90s after all, and we were both working at music magazines). But by the end of the evening, my head was absolutely overflowing. He is one smart cookie and his mind runs waaaay faster than mine. I mean, I was and remain a big ol music fan, but I distinctly recall wondering that night if I was in the wrong line of work.

But you know what, if I found out he wrote a book about indie rock, I’d buy it in a minute, and so I didn’t hesitate to buy his book on comics. I figured if he knows as much about comics as he did about music, it will be a good read. And he does (no surprise), and it is. I am enjoying it hugely — it is delightfully opinionated, completely readable, and just plain fun. (I find myself wondering why art criticism can’t be like this? Why must it inevitably be surrounded with such dastardly abuses of language?)

Anyway, I am thinking about something Douglas wrote: that while comics culture may seem weird and unknowable, this is (in a nutshell) pretty much just defensive behaviour; the community of comics readers is by and large welcoming if you just show the medium a little love. I found this true: I knew nothing much of comics when I started creating them, but this was enough to make others who were more knowledgeable want to share with me what they knew. (How else would I have found Gregory?) And, it is plain to me now, this was true of indie rock back in the day. I was just too busy being youthfully insecure to publicly express my enthusiasm. That would have been, y’know, unkewl.

This book also tells me something about the author that I couldn’t have appreciated back in the 90s: his mind is overflowing with ideas, and what I mistook for I-don’t-know-what over a tiny kitchen table in Queens was actually generosity. I’m glad I at least had chili to share.

(Forgive me while I repost the following — it just seems appropriate.)

How to make chili

Drawing conclusions / Narrative threads — 1 Comment
23
Jan 10

Drawing gear

Recently I needed to find an old sketch, and it took me a while. Here’s 20+ years worth of sketchbooks. Which makes me sound either very old or very experienced, or both. And neither is really the case. In my opinion. Moderately aged and experienced will do.

20+ years of journals

I waver between drawing and writing but the majority of my blank books are unlined, and contain drawings. The earliest journals I’ve kept are written; I didn’t start keeping a sketchbook until I was at art school in the late 80s. Some of my dip pen nibs date back that far.

Her nibs

In my early years of editorial assistantship in the magazine industry in New York, I wrote and wrote, probably to keep myself sane. The odd sketch pops up. I think I liked to reassure myself that I could still draw.

I stopped writing and drawing altogether when my kids were babies. Recently I found a journal that went from written entries entirely to a list of daily entries recording my premature son’s feeding schedule. This actually shows exactly where my head was.

Now I have too many blank books on the go. There’s some moleskines, both blank and lined pages (and one with watercolour paper) and a couple of generic blank books. And of course the online writing…

But here’s a fair selection of what I use on the desk at home. The tech pens are mostly a nostalgic throwback. I love the idea of them (and used pens like this contantly in high school) but they’re buggers for clogging and leaking. Soluble graphite is something newer — the giant crayon-looking things are lovely new additions to the drawing arsenal.

Drawing gear

Drawing conclusions / Learning curve — 3 Comments
24
Mar 09

Getting my hands dirty

I believe the word is ‘recidivist’? Yep, I’m back at art school. On again, off again.

Specifically, I’m right off the overly thinky stuff in the master’s program. What I really wanted was to get my hands dirty—make art, not talk about it so much. So I’m in TAFE, in the BA. And at the rate I’m going, it could well take me five years to complete the degree I didn’t finish in the late 80s. But whatever. I’m doing art again. I’m happy.

This term, it’s figure drawing. Doesn’t look like great shakes, but it’s a world apart from the drawing I used to do when I was in art school round 1 (when I was ostensibly more on top of my game than I am now). I don’t know if I see things differently now, but one thing’s sure—I’m not so a’skeered of making a mess.

Clutter / Drawing conclusions — 1 Comment
17
Jan 09

Projects

Bearing in mind the need/desire not to overcommit myself this year, I have a couple of projects on the go. One is simply sketching more often. In recent weeks, I’ve picked up a couple of Moleskine notebooks with excellent watercolour paper in them. One is small, the other smaller, and so no excuse not to have one on my person at almost any time.

Uni cricket grounds, sketchcrawl

Last weekend I took part in an international sketchcrawl, although it didn’t feel terribly global at the time. I think I might have been the only Adelaide participant. I’ve loaded images from my day into a Flickr sketchbook gallery (at right) which details my ongoing urban sketching among other things.

Also, I’m gonna declutter. No, really! After posting about my dream of Clutter: The Movie a few weeks back, I was asked to take part in a group blog on the topic. Sure, I said, why not? If there’s one thing I know, it’s clutter. And disorganisation, actually. I’m a lifelong practitioner, dare I say master, of both. So, as of a few days ago, you can also find me at A Place for Everything. Join me and several other master clutterers as we try to renounce our ways.

Drawing conclusions / Girls' life / Paper wings — 3 Comments
21
Nov 08

A woman with a plan

Other girls grew up dreaming of I dunno what—Prince Charming? White weddings? Four babies and a picket fence? Me, I always wanted a big-ass plan cabinet for storing all of my paper flat.

OK, maybe not always. But for a very very long time. And this week, my dream came true.

My dream come true

Making this dream come true was a bloody lot of hard work—this cabinet is metal, about 3/4 the size of a single bed, twice as high and weighs three times as much (the Big Knight of office furniture) and I had to do a lot of shifting and carrying myself.

Fitting it into the office was kind of like causing a tsunami of excess furniture which was displaced into the kitchen and living room, and there is rubble all over the office now…but someday that will all be cleaned up, and then, my plan cabinet and I can live happily ever after.

Drawing conclusions / Paper wings / Things to make and do — Comments Off
17
Oct 08

Make way for Ms Doody

Oh, enough of the cynical mumblings, hey? Time for a bit of sunshine. The Marvellous Ms Doody’s Extraordinary Array of Affordable Art is opening its doors in North Adelaide early next month. It’s an exhibit featuring a colourful assortment of cheer and good fun in the form of paintings, drawings, soft toys and other handmade goodies. I’m contributing and very happy to be in such good company. Countdown to the exhibit here.

Drawing conclusions / Paper wings — 3 Comments
22
Sep 08

Searching for spring

The weather is waffling. Yesterday was spring. Today is winter. Never mind—the flowers are out, and there’s always tea!

I painted some poppies over the weekend in search of spring, and in preparation for The Marvellous Ms Doody’s Extraordinary Array of Affordable Art, an exhibit I’m in in November.

Affordable art is an interesting topic — one to return to. I’m a believer in the need (want?) for beautiful things to brighten the life of Everyperson. Conceptual art doesn’t (necessarily) do that, and in fact I find much of it determinedly pessimistic.

But in brief, the artist who wishes to make affordable art walks a fine line between creating for the joy of creating, and the notorious tendency of both craftsperson and customer to undervalue the handmade item. How to circumvent the problem? We shall return to this.

Detail of 'Poppies', watercolour and graphite

Drawing conclusions — 3 Comments
8
Sep 08

Pencil it in

Is there anything so wonderful as a good pencil? The plain old pencils we were given at school were, to me, anything but plain. I appreciated the virtues of a good model—pink and rubbery eraser, shiny yellow brass ferrule—and loathed an inferior model, like the ones with weird plastic-y ‘wood’ or black-banded ferrules (which always seemed to have waxy erasers).

I even bear the mark of this love, in the form of a self-inflicted graphite tattoo in my right palm—from a day when the stars had aligned briefly (perfect new yellow pencil, fierce wall-mounted classroom sharpener). In my reverie I accidentally stabbed myself in the hand as I sat down. The point didn’t break, but it did rub off.

Until I stumbled across Bob Truby’s Brand Name Pencils site, I didn’t know that my most hated pencil was the Eberhard Faber Mongol, with that black-banded ferrule and the wax-prone erasers. And the white-capped green craquelure American Venus 3B was my favourite for sketching.

And the pencil which tattooed itself forever on my hand (if not my heart) was an Eberhard Faber Princess 1396 (No 2, of course)—how could I ever forget that big blue ‘2′? I couldn’t. And I think I might even sleep better tonight knowing this.

Drawing conclusions / Talk about the weather — 1 Comment
5
Aug 08

No water

When you see those words, what do you think? Can you imagine a day when your tap runs dry? In Adelaide, it’s closer to reality than imaginable.

Murray River at Swan Reach

This is an aerial photo taken by a farmer I know. See those sandbars? Those are upstream from Swan Reach, South Australia. If the river drops another 50–70 cm, it is probable that it will no longer flow over the sandbars.

That photograph made me catch my breath. It makes me want to do something. But what can you do?

I want someone to reclaim water from upstream. But none of the politicians even turned up to the farmers’ rally in Adelaide the other day. Not even the state’s water minister.

Maybe they think that because it has rained in Adelaide recently that it’s all going to be OK. Or that we’ll forget this is what the Murray River looks like 60 kilometres (38 miles) upstream from Murray Bridge, and not much farther from Adelaide, a city of a million people who rely on the river for drinking water.

I’d just like to remind any eastern Australians reading that while you may have rain, we don’t have very much water here. And ask you to tell someone upstream, whether geographically or politically. Maybe if the message really makes it to the top, someone will try to help. I can’t say I’m thrilled about the government and opposition pecking each other’s feathers out over carbon trading starting (2010! No, 2011!) when I see what the Murray looks like now.

Meantime I guess we’ll fix our leaky roof (ironic, no?) and keep on catching the runoff in our rainwater tank. We’ll take whatever we can get.

Drawing conclusions — Comments Off
1
Jul 08

De-stressing

Somewhere I read that stroking a cat is a proven way to lower your blood pressure. (Does drawing a cat work?) Meet Cookie, our resident anti-stress device.

Little Red Hen StudioLots to do, one chick to do it