Conundra

I've been consumed with thoughts of our drawing exhibition; we hang in five weeks minus one day.

I stopped looking for figure drawings on the Internet to admire or styles/techniques to emulate; instead I've tried to practice or at least hold implements and press them against paper, but I've had a block like I've never had with weaving or writing. Talk about staring at the blank sheet; I know I procrastinated enough to tire of procrastination, but I now know I've never had a real block before. I have no idea what I want to see, and not even the fun techniques I learned in Ronette's class aren't helping.

In the first instance, I hadn't thought about drawing in my life and I don't know what it means or where it stands, except I enjoy it in class even when I struggle. I have nothing to prove, no style/method, which should mean I've a childlike freedom/permission to just "go for it" but this isn't helping. A somewhat more practical issue is quick gesture drawings still being my favorite, I feel obliged to make more polished/worked work if folks are kind enough to make their way to a gallery, and I haven't figured out how to rework gesture drawings. It sounds so contradictory. Plus, I'm using A2, which is half the size of A1, my favorite, and when it comes to gesture drawing, the movements of my arms and the whole body influence the fluidity of the drawing, so anything on A2 feels contrived.

I found a few of my past favorites on the big sheets - know what I mean?

Anyhoo, never short of ideas, I'm going to try something that eliminates intention from the equation. You'll laugh when I show you these.

Sam and Annabelle have lovely and more mature (as drawers and painter) work. I have four each from them to use in the poster/publicity and some are positively swoon-worthy. I'm not competing with them, but I would still like to make some myself that I can be happy with, whatever that means. 

But I made the poster; I struggled with the line under "Go Figure"; "- An Exhibition of Human Figures" sounded like we were going to parade naked, and I couldn't use "Figure Drawing" because the Sam and Annabelle also have paintings, so I was appreciative when Annabelle whipped up the second line.