AEM DAY 11 - Learning to let go...

I'm feeling a lot more comfortable in my artistic skin these days, all my hard work seems to be paying off at last! I spent my years at college being told to forget the style I had then and I struggled to find a new one I was comfortable with, which is how the collage came about and I dropped my drawing altogether. It was a process I had to go through but it's taken over 10 years to realise that my drawing is an important part of who I am and instead of apologising for the fact I could draw I should embrace it and use it with my collage skills and loosen up and somewhere in the mess and confusion the real me will emerge. Scary thought.

Above is a doodle using one of my calligraphy pens. I year or two ago I bought the new pilot parallel pens with brand new nibs that you could write on the edge of the nibs without losing the lines and for an impatient calligrapher they are totally wonderful. I usually use them for wedding stationery as they have a traditional ink thingy (forgot the name!) so you can use your own ink, gouache or watercolour mixes as well as standard cartridges and they write on almost anything. Anyway I thought I would try and draw with them instead of my usual rotring and experiment with the different lines you get with the wide nib. Then I pasted on a piece of indian handmade paper and see what happened. The lines of the drawing underneath showed through and when dry I drew over the top. Yum. Don't know if the finished result is any good but I enjoyed the process. And I it occured to me I have bottles and bottles of ink in a box I haven't used in a while so I might get them out next! Just like being back at college but without the stress of the critiques!