Monday, September 20, 2010

Distractions, distractions......





Once again I find myself distracted from the task at hand.....I've completed sculpting two of my "Seven Deadly Fae", but the last few weeks have been taken up with a bit of a mish-mash of small projects, some long-overdue, that have needed my attention. As a result, I have strayed from the path.
I found the little sketchy drawing at the top last week while sorting through some paper and immediately wanted to make a sculpt.....I don't remember when I made the drawing and it doesn't have any notes on it, but the friendly little face is very appealing so should make a nice piece.
Unfortunately, on completing this head I made the error of doodling around with the lovely , soft, leftover clay and another wrinkled little face began to emerge....I made a few modifications and transferred it to some armature wire and spent the rest of the day lovingly adding and smoothing lines and crevices. With Halloween fast approaching, I'm thinking she will be a witch, but maybe one of the 'hag' variety, with shawl and hood instead of the traditional pointy hat. However, with my attention span being somewhat less than optimal at present, anything could happen.
The ink drawing at the bottom was made yesterday after going through my pen collection to weed out the ones whose ink had dried up. Every time I start drawing like this, unplanned and with no pre-conceived ideas, I wonder why I don't make a greater effort to do it more often. I love graphite, but drawing directly with ink (no pencil outlines first) is wonderful because while it is unforgiving it also inspires you to have confidence when putting the marks down. There is no middle ground....the drawing will either work....or not. This is a particularly valuable lesson for someone like me, who likes to have total control over every little thing. Sometimes it's nice to just go with the flow. So I will.....for a little while.
Till next time.