#89 - #94: Visual Journal meanderings

Before leaving for Paris March 22, I was experimenting with lots of patterns in my Visual Journal.  Some of the designs I saw on Pinterest, some in a book about Aboriginal artists, some I made up. Inspiration comes from so many different places.

What I love about my Visual Journal is that it's my place to experiment.  I choose to ask myself, "I wonder what would happen if I...?" then I proceed to find out. Sometimes the results are wonderful, and I'm really happy. Other times I feel disappointed and feel like maybe I wasted my time - though I also realize that isn't true - I'm learning something at all times if I just pay attention to the lesson!

This first drawing gave me the idea to create the pregnant nude drawing using these same types of strokes to indicate the curves of her breasts and belly. The second drawing gave me more ideas about the roundness of her body and how to represent it.  (I've written about that drawing here.)

#90

#89

These drawings were created through the following process: First I painted the white paper with brightly colored, jewel-toned watercolors. After it dried completely (that part is important!), I put tape down where I wanted the paint to show. Then I painted the piece with black gesso. After it dried completely (again, completely is the operative word here!), I pulled up the paint to reveal the beautiful "frame".  Then I created the white-lined designed.

The piece on the left, I think, is less successful than the one on the right, primarily because I didn't follow my own advice and wait completely until the watercolor dried, or until the gesso dried! Consequently the watercolor isn't as finely done, and the lines aren't as sharp.  I also used lines to demarcate the regions. I prefer how I did it in the second one - I think it looks cooler! It's helpful to try things more than once to really get the hang of it better!

#91 Version 1

#92 Version 2

#93
"Art is something that makes me breathe with a different kind of happiness."
That seemed worth creating a pretty page for!

#94
I got myself some fancy gel pens and decided
to play with them to see what they were
capable of doing.  I enjoy drawing on black paper with
gel pens as the contrast is so satisfying!

#46 completed. Pregnant Nude created with 1000's of gel pen marks

I think I have finished this piece. 

Life Coming Through Her
Gel Pen on Paper
13"x20"
$850 unframed

            

A friend looked at this image yesterday, looked at me quizically and challenged, "Susan, this seems like an anti-abortion piece." I didn't know how to respond.  I am not against abortion. I am deeply in favor of a woman's right to choose what is right for her. And I am deeply in love with pregnancy and birth and babies, and especially with my own precious children.  I am very thankful I never had to decide whether to have an abortion or not. And I am equally thankfully that some of my friends did have that option and were able to take it and save the arch of their lives and that of their unborn children from the chaos and suffering that would have ensued had the children come into this world.

To me, this piece is about the sanctity of life. Absolutely. The woman portrayed in this piece chose to become pregnant and was deeply happy to be carrying her child. It was the right thing for her at the right time in her life (at least as far as I know based on the conversations we had. I can't begin to assert I know everything in her heart or mind!) My intention with this piece is to portray a beautiful woman at one of the most beautiful times of her life as she prayerfully considers her unborn child. It evokes for me that time in my own life when I felt my children inside my womb, when my body was a vessel for their body and their spirit. This piece feels very calm and centered, as I felt when creating it. The repetition of the marks created a calmness in me that gave rise to contemplation and quiet joy.

But a posterchild for anti-abortion?  No.

An image of the sanctity of life. Yes.

I think most people could agree that life is sacred and that giving birth to a wanted child is one of the most sacred acts a person can do. The grey area comes, I think, from other situations - ones where the child is not wanted, or the woman can't care for the child and lives in fear and poverty with it, or the child is a product of rape or coercion - then what?

I don't have the answer. I wish we could find common ground here, though, for the conversation. It's complicated. Complex. There is no simple answer. The moral complexities are daunting. Each person will have personal experiences which inform their responses/reactions. How different our country could be if we could sit with each other and confer with gentle curiosity and a desire to learn from each other about these difficult questions - with compassion for the challenges and difficulties, with awareness and respect for the blessing that each child can be, with a willingness to hear many different facets of a situation. When we know a person's story and understand their motivations and challenges, it becomes so much more difficult to judge them. 

Can you begin to imagine a world where life is sacred, and each life is honored, and women are trusted to make decisions for themselves and their unborn children? It is SO complex to even try to imagine it - it feels risky to even ask the question!

The beginning. I saw an image in National
Geographic which wouldn't leave me alone, so
I decided to include it in the piece.
My attempt here was to create marks which
would create a sense of volume around the belly.

The marks I made on the left to create
a sense of depth and darness weren't
dark enough because gel pens don't
come in very dark values!  I used
ink here to deepen the value contrast.

Working to fill the page with marks. I
wanted to have the marks indicate the
volume of each bady part.

By this point, it was painfully
obvious to me that the dark was much too
dark and contrasted too strongly with
the rest of the piece. But I liked the breasts
and hands.

I lightened the darks by putting blue into
them so they weren't so dominant.

I strengthened the lights so they stood out more and increased some of the depth,
refined what I could. It is now finally reading as I want it to and feels like I've said
what I wanted to say with it: the pregnant body is gorgeous. Life is sacred. 

#41, #42, #43 of 100 Creations in 100 Days. Aboriginal Designs and CitraSolv Papers

#41

As a child, I spent a lot of time doodling in my notebooks while also taking notes.  I had certain doodles I always went back to, like drawing flowers, or creating auras around objects, like words written in "bubble script". Recently I was browsing the work of aboriginal artists from Australia and found ones that reminded me of the doodles I used to do so I  decided to use them as the basis of some new work.  These two pieces are the result. They are both done on black paper using a white (and gold) gel pen.

#42

The paper that both have in common is a paper I purchased, not something I drew.  I just liked the juxtaposition of one to the other.

#43

This third piece is done on a page from a National Geographic which was treated with Citrasolv.  Citrasolv makes the ink dissolve, sometimes completely, sometimes just a bit. This page was primarily text with a block of image. The ink hadn't completley dissipated so I played with the patches where is was lighter and darker, creating auras around each light patch, then coloring in some of the curves created from that patterning. I plan to play with this technique some more.  It was enjoyable to create and I like the results.