Fur: Enough. Folds: Enough. Cute: Enough. Love and Affection: Never Enough.
On a technical note, this pen and ink drawing was made by slowly building layers of cross-hatched lines. It's very easy to get carried away. The tough part is deciding when enough is enough.
Oliver's wrinkles make him look perpetually a.) perplexed, b.) forlorn, c.) guilty or d.) all of the above.
This drawing is one a series of dog portraits I've been working on this year. This winter I started drawing dogs in pen and ink and found a way of drawing that makes the finished product look like an etching. On lighter colored dogs the effect looks almost like dry-point etching. I'll be using the drawings in a calendar that will be one of my many new product offerings at the National Stationery Show in May -- just a few weeks away.
I take my inspiration from the dogs in the my neighborhood -- any stroll in the dog parks looks like a Westminster Dog Show parade. I want to thank the dogs and their owners in Boston's South End and Jamaica Plain for their patience and forbearance.
One way to understand an object you're drawing is to draw it from multiple points of view. From a purely analytic standpoint, you come to realize that complex objects can be broken down into simple components that come together in a fairly logical way. The class started with a really simple object -- a cube. Over the next 12 weeks we progressed from the cube to a cylinder, a wine bottle, a funnel, etc. Each time we drew the objects from different points of view, at the same time designing a pleasing composition. The class was a little dry for my liking but it's the equivalent of eating spinach and broccoli -- maybe it's not your favorite thing but it's certainly good for you.
Fifteen years later I was working with a photographer on a product shoot for one of my clients. I drew an open medicine cabinet full of toiletries and medication. It was a quick sketch just to show the photographer a general idea of the point of view and what my layout was going to look like. When the photographer and I spoke to finalize the details of the shoot, he mentioned how much he appreciated my drawing -- especially the attention to the single-point perspective I used to delineate the shelves. I have my drawing class to thank -- it was great to be able to draw a complex picture using a multiplicity of elements that I was able to put together in a logical fashion. More importantly, because of the intensity of the class, I was able to, years later, be able to capitalize on what I learned intuitively, like it was second nature.
My freshman year drawing instructor said to draw the model in a structural way -- showing the contours of an imagined armature. My biggest concern was to avoid a robotic look. Somehow I wound up with a drawing resembling a depiction of acupuncture theory (of which I knew almost next to nothing). I don't know much about traditional Chinese medicine but 1 billion Chinese can't be wrong, right?
I took a hand-quilting class about 12 years ago. The class was several weeks long and in that time we were going to learn various methods of hand-piecing by putting together several quilt blocks to form a sampler quilt. Each week we learned different things: how to make a pattern, how to cut cloth, how to pin together our pieces, how to sew, etc. In all that time it was never suggested that we draw our quilt blocks to plan out our fabric choices. I was just so enamored to be working with such delightful patterns and colors that I drew out my squares. I justified the investment of time into these "quilt block portraits" as studies that would help me avoid making terrible fabric combinations. But I knew deep down that was a flimsy excuse. I just wanted to draw patterns and shapes. I wanted them to come alive on the page before I executed them in fabric.
I'm including my layout plan for the quilt. I'm not all that sure that I followed the plan completely. I may have made last minute changes as I was piecing the quilt together.
I thought it would only be fair to also show a photo of the completed quilt. It was almost entirely hand-sewn. I used a sewing machine to attach, and possibly make the binding. I may have also used the machine to sew the back panels together. Everything else is hand-sewn. I'm often asked why I don't use the machine more. For me hand-sewing is incredibly relaxing. Using a sewing machine feels a little too much like work. I suppose if I used the machine more often it would become second nature and I would feel less Dickensian about it. For me, the whole point of hand-sewing is there's no rush. I don't have a quota to fill or a deadline to meet. I'm doing it to do it. Which, oddly enough, is how I feel about drawing.
Something in my brain feels deeply satisfied when my eyes and hands work together -- whether it's drawing, quilting, calligraphy, knitting or crocheting, the effect is similar. It's at once relaxing and stimulating -- I feel deeply calm and at the same time incredibly awake and engaged. It's as thought the act of working with my hands opens my mind to learn new things. I'm sure chemists and neuroscientists all over the world are trying to figure out how to get this feeling in pill, if not sniffable, form. It would at the very least make an interesting brain study -- to see the effects of fine handiwork on cognitive development and receptivity. Somebody should get on that.
