Illustration Friday – Communication

Last weekend I was lucky enough to see and hear Ruthie Foster perform at the Alix Goolden hall in Victoria. It was incredible. She had this huge smile that never left her face, communicating along with her voice. Near the end, she said "I don't know about y'all, but I've had myself a good time!" Me too! This is an attempt to represent what it was like to be there listening to her – warmth, joy, power, everything offered up with such intensity.

Illustration Friday – Gravity

I feel like this is just the beginning of getting this idea out... but here it is. I developed a habit of drawing people on the bus during my morning commute. After a while, I realized many of the same people were showing up in my sketchbook, those I take the same bus with every day, and I started to feel less anonymous and therefore more afraid of getting caught! The solution? Draw people who are sleeping! And the sleeping ones are most affected by the perils of gravity on the lurching bus. I'd love to have a whole pile of them unintentionally intruding on each others' space, spilling out in every direction...

Illustration Friday – Crash

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As Darryl's been working night shifts, he often crashes at odd times, usually while wearing a shoes and a coat. And sometimes, even though I'm in the middle of making dinner, I join him for a few minutes.

Dear blog – be my valentine?

I've been so horribly neglectful of you, for six whole months – sad and lonely months for you, I'm sure. But now, with Valentine's day coming up tomorrow, I can't bear to ignore you for another day. I'm pledging my everlasting love and making a commitment to spend some quality time with you at least once a week. I promise. Because I love you blog, even though I haven't always been the best at showing it.

Luckily, I have a friend to help me stick to this new commitment. Illustration Friday. Here is my belated response to last week's Sprout theme.

Fresh from the USA

An hour or two inside Franz Ackermann's head

So, it's not actually all about drawing . . .

Sometimes it's about "Photography as the new painting" -- the title of my photo assignment this week. We were instructed to respond aesthetically to a painting, and then keep that response in mind while creating a photo. I was drawn to this painting, "Untitled (Mental Map: Evasion III" 1996, by Franz Ackermann because of the way it mixed physical and imagined space, and the combination of geometric and organic shapes. So after thinking about it over the weekend, I ran around campus on my lunch hour today, traipsing through flower beds and hoping that the gardeners wouldn't yell at me (they didn't -- and the sun even came out!). Here is the original, followed by my interpretation.

Thanks to Michelle, Laura and Alisha for the brainstorming session last week! I almost climbed a tree, but decided to get dirty crawling around on the ground instead. Maybe next time . . .

Hi!

A few weeks ago, I woke up in Shula's livingroom in Brooklyn to the sound of my gorgeous sister saying "I heart earplugs!" So, being that I heart drawing and all, I rolled over, grabbed my sketchbook, and drew it.

I'll post the rest of the drawings from the trip here soon!