Okay I’m caught up! I am still on track to do one drawing a week in 2007! Even if I don’t actually do one a week, on time, I still aim to have 52 drawings by the end of the year. Farah, my roomate (also a footwear designer) just came back from 3 weeks in China and gave me a package of butterfly temporary tattoos. The outlines of the butterflies in this drawing are inspired by those. She said “I wonder what an analyst would say about your drawings.” I never thought of that. I suddenly felt a little exposed. Then I said “Farah you might kick me out, they might say I am m-e-n-t-a-l. Look at these! Some of the women have no hands, instead they have claws and jigsaw puzzles for hands. And they are full of symbols that don’t make sense.” She didn’t seem worried, she laughed it off, and in a way encouraged me further by giving me 4 darling little blank books from China to capture my ideas in, along with those butterfly tattoos.

Some FAQ I’ve been getting:
Do you pencil them in first?
No. I just draw them using a Micron blue or black pen. I have a really heavy hand and I almost always destroy the 005 pens tips because I press so hard, so mostly, I use the 05’s. On one of the drawings, I had it mostly done, and I messed up a part, so I cut a chunk out and I attached a new piece of paper to that part, and just drew that part again. Old skool. Or to lazy to start over, but really to lazy to use pencil in the first place. I just hate pencil. Did I mention I have a heavy hand? I had a hard time in jewelery making class for the same reason. Give me something to weld, fine, but the little delicate stuff… ugh.

What do they mean? They don’t have any pre-planned conscious contextual meaning. I swear. I don’t plan them out, I usually just start with one image I’ve been inspired by and go from there. But it looks like I unwittingly found a template; each drawing has an architectural element, print patterns and textures, flora and fauna, a figure inspired by fashion photography, and something man-made like something plastic, metal or electronic.

What are they for? Just for fun. Okay maybe for a little art therapy going on. Okay, maybe proscrastinating in drawing shoes, which I should really be working on cuz then I can buy groceries.

Will you make a coloring book with these? Maybe I will, Mom. Good idea. I’ll draw some more first.

How long do they take? I like to work slow. So I seem to spend between 2 - 6 hours. But that’s because I usually get distracted; make some tea, or get a beer, or make a snack, or look for more inspiration in between. Usually I don’t realize it’s 1:00 a.m. already. I always listen to music when I work so time does fly.

Other progress towards my creative goals this year…. I actually wrote 2 hand-written letters last month (to my Dear Granny Dot in Portland … and to my pal from Junior High School in the late 80’s, Dear Michaela, in San Francisco) and started working towards updating this site (thanks in advance for your help on this, FCC’s webhost, Jake!) Alright, need to work on shoes now. Seriously. It seems a joke to be drawing flip flops when it’s so cold, but I gotta do it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 6th, 2007 at 3:44 am and is filed under Art & Design, Drawin'. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.