This is a recent drawing I just completed - part of a larger piece. It's based on probably the most beautiful women I've been able steal a kiss from and who currently won't talk to me (earlier drawing - I guess I'm getting better...).
Instead of cross hatching, I've simply modulated the width of the lines being drawn, exactly the same way as I was investigating, but this time, following the contours of the object itself, (instead of just flat).
The outcome is that the drawing becomes quite a bit more sculptural. I have to admit, that was not what I thought would happen. Before I drew the lines, using a crow quill pen, I used a rapidograph pen, which is probably now clogged, to draw very fine lines, that I then went over where I needed to, with the crow quill pen. That thing is pretty good at that modulation thing, a rapidograph pen is not.
First drawing I've ever tried this on. Kinda have a lot of work needed to perfect the technique, but it's still pretty obvious you don't need to be clean with the lines, perfect with the modulation/placement, or even anal about the shape and curvature of the lines - just have everything, "pretty close".
I was working on attempting to emulate a technique from a published paper written about computer programs that described their attempt to emulate engraving techniques. Their attempt looked very successful. The paper itself, well, sucks: It's full of holes and has false results that have been fibbed. I know because I tried to recreate the results. Tried. Or, I don't quite know what I'm doing. I am very stupid when it comes to Maths.
I added this drawing to a bunch of stenciled letters that read, "NO FUCKING CHANCE", (much like I first did with my own face) which sounds somewhat pessimistic, but the idea is that if you have no chance, there's nothing to lose, so you might as well try and make very big fucking risks, since no one really cares. It's as if the Dalai Lama became a post punker in Manchester in 1978, after somehow seeing the Sex Pistols play and was then asked if he could wrap up his personal philosophy up in one sentence,
NO FUCKING CHANCE
I can almost hear him say, with that wry smile he has and then chuckle, going about his way, slowly. Still smiling.
If I'm honest with myself, I really can say that currently, no one really cares about my artwork - other than myself, so I can just feel that I can do, whatever I want with it. Thinking differently would make me feel as if I'm marginalizing myself, for someone else. This doesn't mean I don't think about forms of arts, practices and ideas, that I won't take them into consideration or use, learn and grow from them - far from it. It just gives me license to not, if I choose to not. It also points back to the Thoreau idea of aiming high - the Moon! for example, since you're going to miss the mark, anyways.
It's hard not to think of ideas such as this, without also putting perspective on our lives. None of us want to feel that we're worthless. Putting a drawing of someone after these words could be taken as condescending, as if we're projecting the idea upon the person. I don't know about you, but if all I was doing with my work was putting text next to images and going, "See this text, I'm talking about THIS!" (what's pictured), I'd be a very lazy, unimaginative artist. I call such people who do that, "Advertisers" and they continually embarrass me and my ideas of who the human race can and will be. Now, I couldn't sell water to a fish, not because I'm absolutely clueless as to how, but because I DON'T WANT TO. No Fucking Chance!
Maybe this whole phrase, short, to the point - with a damning word in the middle, has to do a lot about perspective. Seen from far away, none of our lives really do have much purpose. Our minds born in the jungle seem to only want to take in immediate information, mostly to understand threats around us. Or food. Or advantages. It's hard for us to think wider and I don't blame anyone for that, but we have to realize there are things outside our vision and that we are much smaller than probably any of us are really comfortable in being. We're together and alone and a part of a great, anonymous whole that none of us can really understand. Talking about philosophy again... kind of one of those little big ideas.
Anyways, it's just art work. Much of the time, I'll create something without a full understanding of what I'm doing and sometimes the act of creation won't allow me to shed light on the subject, no matter how much writing I do about it afterwards. I don't know how engaging it would be to write, "WHY?" and, "HUH?" on art work. But, sometimes that's what's written there, invisibly. "Confused" written on our own faces. That's hard to come to terms with. I think it's healthy to be to do so - to be able to admit.
But that's not what's written in this piece.
If there's a duality to all this - if there's a personal side to it, it's that I would do anything for that person that I've drawn, because I have nothing else to lose. No matter the hardships. Nothing to lose. No matter the controversy, no matter the misunderstandings. Nothing to lose.
I wrote this first on a big piece of paper, taped to a wall, but I ran out of paper, and finished the word, "Chance" on the wall itself. I thought that was awesome: Even the attempt to write out the phrase failed, but I keep on going.
