I got up early this morning and had an inkling to do a quick sketch of just about anything. I had been off drawing for quite a while as I was busy with a lot of things: traveling, spending time with family, taking care of business.
Now that I’m back on the wagon, so to speak, I find myself yearning for a little more variety, especially in my stylistic approach. The term cozy is thrown around liberally these days, applied to anything, whether it makes sense or not. And I’m not one given to repeating popular idioms or catchphrases. In fact, it’s mostly the opposite. But cozy seems appropriate, especially among the din of modern cultural life.
I also enjoy visually taking in what looks to be very obviously natural media, or at least a reasonable facsimile of pigments like gouache, pastel, oil and the like. So lately, I’ve been playing around with my old friend Harley Dunce Sketchy, my personal variant of a pencil from a collection of Dunce brushes I bought years ago. I still love that collection.
It’s referenced from a photograph on Pinterest. The brush is rough and semi-transparent at lower pressures, but there is something about that lack of transfer that makes it look organic. And because it can feel pretty jittery at times, that randomness forces a kind of urgency to get the idea out quickly, necessitating more economical, simplistic strokes, which affects the style of the drawing in a pleasant way.
I need to create more drawings that are not labored or striving for perfection. That seems difficult for me. I do enjoy the roughness and speed of strokes in these types of sketches, but I can still keep the detail and proportions that lend some weight and plausibility.
