Marginal Drawing 15

Marginal Drawing 14

Marginal Drawing 13

Marginal Drawing 12

Marginal Drawing 11

Marginal Drawing 10

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day

Marginal Drawing 09

Marginal Drawing 08

Marginal Drawing 07

Wall Drawings 2

Marginal Drawing 05

Marginal Drawing OK

Marginal Drawings

With each new iteration of digital tool packages, the goal (and the marketing claim) is that it mimics analogue mark-making better and faster than the previous version.  While I am not here to argue that an older way of mark-making is better than a new one, I believe that digital and manual ways of image making can inform each other.  Further, the current batch of college students have grown up without knowing life without the existence of digital manipulation tools.  I see them typing on their phones with a velocity that seems impossible to me.  And yet, when asked to draw some simple shapes with a pencil, they seem to lack the same skill and courage of my little nieces and nephew.

The skill exists.  They have just forgotten it.  I'd like to advocate drawing in the margins of notebooks.  Much to the disappointment of some of my high school teachers, I used to draw all over my notes.  It seemed as if I was not paying attention, and yet when I took notes without drawing my test scores were lower.  Drawing served as a visual memory tool.  I doubt that all of the typing on a smartphone that I see in class today is serving as an additional memory tool for the lecture in class.

Thinking specifically about art classes, students need to build skill-of-hand.  They need to learn how to manipulate a surface with a mark-making tool.  Drawing in the margins, without a goal in mind, can start developing the required manual dexterity needed for success in many art-making endeavors.  For experienced artists, it can serve to keep the drawing muscles loose.  It can also serve as a source for new ideas.  I tend to stick to formal elements.  I have colleagues, who are more content driven, who draw little stick figures while talking on the phone. These drawings might not be finished.  These drawings might not be very serious.  But, these drawings are marginally important.

Wall Drawing 1

When the space is yours, and you are left to paint the walls yourself, and you get bored with cutting straight lines along the trim, and you're an artist, what do you do?  Draw on the walls with the paint brush and roller, of course.

I'm showing these in grayscale because that is how I want to think of them.  I don't know if they will inform future prints (some might just be used directly to make prints), or if they should inform future paintings.  I want to leave color out of it right now and just think tonally.

Grand Canyon sketchbook going back out on tour

with the people at Sketchbook Project and the Brooklyn Art Library
Since the sketchbook reproduction is out of print,
this is a nice opportunity to see the original that I made on my first winter Grand Canyon trip.

May 12 update:  (available in print for just about as long as the tour is happening, but the original has a quality that is unmatched in the reproduction)

Here are the stops scheduled so far:

May 8 - 10
Brooklyn Art Library
103 A N. 3rd Street, Brooklyn, NY 11249

May 20
New York Public Library
5th Ave at 42nd St.
New York, NY 10018

May 30
Ideas City Street Fest at New Museum
235 Bowery
New York, NY 10002

June 5 - 7
Binders Art Supplies and Frames (Ponce City Market)
650 North Ave NE
Atlanta, GA 30308

June 13
Perez Art Museum
1103 Biscayne Blvd
Miami, FL 33130

June 19 - 21
Umlauf Sculpture Garden & Museum
605 Robert E Lee Road
Austin, TX 78704

June 26 - 28
LACMA
5905 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036

August 7
First Friday Art Murmur
Oakland, CA 94606

August 8 - 9
The Yard at Mission Rock
3rd St. & Terry A Francois Blvd
San Francisco, CA 94158

August 13 - 15
Olympic Sculpture Park
2901 Western Ave
Seattle, WA 98121

August 22 - 23
Chicago Loop Alliance
310 S State St.
Chicago, IL 60604

August 28 - 30
The Distillery Historic District
55 Mill Street
Toronto, ON M5A 3C4
Canada