Challenge #11: Distance drawing

skull study @ 50" and 40"- ink

This week I was in quarenteen so did not get to my weekly engagement with the stage I have been using for the cast eye (results to follow at another time). Therefore I was forced to scramble for a new challenge in drawing; I call it "finding the tree within the forest". In this challenge I took a 50" piece of bamboo crudely shaped it into a pen tip dipped it into a jar of ink water and drew- from a distance. The first attempt was from the full 50" with end of stick in hand (see side drawing of hand positions in each sketch). I found that the stick was so long that half of the challenge was getting the wobbly point to land somewhere in the vicinity of where I was going with it with the other half attempting to move it in a similar direction as intended. I feel as thought the concentration was much more intensely on where to put the line and thus made me realize the importance of the individual line opposed to mass built by a series of lines. The next sketch was made from 40" where I used a fisted grip do to the nature of the length since trying to balance the weight led to less control than a thumb guided grip.

skull study @30" & 20"

When I moved up the stick to the 30" mark I felt like I was fighting the drawing tool less and learning to appreciate the loose nature of the drawing more. I noticed that my grip had again changed and the intense focus on each line's placement, length or direction was less of a hindrance and more of an appreciated lesson in patience and decisive placement. By the time I did the 20" position the weight was shifted towards the rear and so I returned to take a letter writing grip since the fisted grip seemed now awkward at such close proximity. In hind site of this experiment, although I choose to not wear glasses to keep the drawing unimportant thus having me focus more on the process, it might have alleviated the frustration of seeing what I was drawing from a far including judgement of the closeness of paper to writing utensil. The benefits of such a challenge is to return me to appreciate the economy of line as well as bring me into a more meditative thought upon the process and intent of process.