I like to draw in extremes. A drawing session may be a strict academic study that displays technical knowledge of anatomy and the beauty of the female form, and the next session may be pure fluff, spewed from my mind and thrown onto a piece of paper with a ballpoint pen.
I draw in these two realities hoping that this will aid me in choosing what I want to paint and expand on when the time comes. Somewhere between these two instances I can find my balance.
It's necessary for me to draw everything and anything that catches my eye.
Everything.
Whether it's the crooked shadow of branches clawing the landscape or the soft round forms of my wife bending over the sink to put her make up on, I have to draw it.
I only stick with the drawing until I become bored; if I draw while I'm bored, my drawing is going to be boring. It's the first flicker of interest that must be carried throughout the drawing and eventually onto the painting. I don't ask questions as to why I'm interested in drawing something, I just go on and draw it until I lose that feeling.
I think that's why I care so much about my Chapin Park painting. I'm at a lull right now, but I have faith that I will know what to do with it soon will carry it completion.
And I've got a whole new set of problems now as I stumble through learning composition and "narrative". It's not enough to just plaster something on the middle of a paper/canvas, I've got to make sure it has harmony. Andrew Loomis had a composition method from his Creative Illustration that I think I'll take a crack at soon.
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