“Standing alone, my senses reeled,

A fatal attraction is holding me fast.

How can I escape this irresistable grasp? 

Can’t keep my eyes from the circling sky, 

Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I”

        “Learning to Fly”– Pink Floyd 

Is there anything more exciting than a blank canvas? The potential just waiting for a decision. And then another decision. A plan. A direction. And then creation. 

So to mark out the figure of my son, I grabbed a charcoal pencil and just drew. Wonky, inaccurate in places, feeling my way. By this point I had already spent hours figuring out my composition, color harmonics and set up the armatures. Because anyone that knows me or has taken my composition class, knows that I have a deep love for the “Pythagoean Theorum of Harmonic Divisions of the Rectangle.”  In other words- diagonals are awesome. 

Once I had the drawing to where it felt kinda “set” I dipped a little brush in some water and started blocking out the darker patterns of the figure.

There will be 3 main armature lines pointing up to the top left corner where he is looking, giving the impression of looking up a tall route to climb….

 Then I dragged in a basic rough texture over background. Not a wash, but more of a dry dragging with brush and palette knife. I am having fun playing with the texture on the linen. I am anticipating the rock textures of rock behind him.

And then… you know me… next comes the “yellow stage”…. that’s next week.