Unboxing
Original work. Micron pen on paper.
5” x 7”
Breaking in a new set of pens, thus completing both the literal unboxing of the new writing tool and the metaphorical unboxing of my imagination. That right there is why artists get the big bucks.
Original work. Micron pen on paper.
5” x 7”
Breaking in a new set of pens, thus completing both the literal unboxing of the new writing tool and the metaphorical unboxing of my imagination. That right there is why artists get the big bucks.
Original work. Micron pen on paper.
5” x 7”
Breaking in a new set of pens, thus completing both the literal unboxing of the new writing tool and the metaphorical unboxing of my imagination. That right there is why artists get the big bucks.
In all seriousness, there’s an excitement to using fresh pens, particularly Micron pens, which I love because their ink is really opaque. You’re not seeing through that blackness, and it’s the closest I can get to that sort of black without painting or printing. I gain confidence from drawing with the these things; they scratch the paper so smoothly and gently, leaving rounded corners or sharp edges, traversing the value spectrum, creating contrast as if plugged into me. They accommodate intentionality and intuition, allowing for in-betweens without ever leaving a gray mark.
With this particular piece, done mostly in one sitting, for as much as I made choices about what to do with different components of the piece, I didn’t do a whole lot of thinking. I pretty quickly got into a groove, ditching my tendency toward constant appraisal and re-appraisal and instead treating the whole thing as an exercise in submitting to artistic impulse. Because of its relative spontaneity, I like that in looking at it now, on my living room wall, I get a glimpse of the same controlled, plentiful energy and momentum which I felt when I made it.