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~ About the artwork ~

Motivation Learning Curve Making a drawing Making a print

The process from start to finish.

I choose a subject and rough sketch it out in pencil. At the beginning, I would go to a location and sit in the open air to draw….But that was in the years B.C. (before children). Now, and for the foreseeable future, I take several photographs and work from one or several at home. The pencil drawing is done strictly from observation (I don’t trace a projected image or use grids to transfer image – I just sit and draw what I am looking at).

When it is down in pencil, I use a rapidograph-type technical drawing pen instead of a traditional quill ink pen. I found this to be more convenient and practical (especially when I was doing sketches in Africa – no ink bottle to tip over, no dipping necessary). With the ink, again, I work with intent observation of the photo(s) I am working from. I use the pencil drawing as a guide to keep me from making any irreversible mistakes (any mistake in ink is irreversible). When the ink drawing is complete, I erase the underlying pencil drawing. Sometimes that pencil drawing is quite detailed, depending on the complexity of the subject and how scared I am of messing up with the ink.

The completed drawing is then “burned” onto a photo-emulsion coated silkscreen frame. This silkscreen is then used to print a limited edition of the image. The ink is pressed through the screen onto archival print-making paper using a squeegee and a fairly thick (gelatinous) silkscreen printing ink. I make no more than 200 black and white prints of each image which are numbered and signed. The colored prints are a different story. These are one of a kind, using watercolor paint.

Motivation:

People ask, “How do you do it?”. Or, “How do you find the time?” .“How do you keep so motivated when there is so much else going on in life?” (like working at a job 40 hours a week and raising a family….). “How do you stick with a drawing that seems to take months from start to finish?”

When I was a kid, “being an artist” was a big part of my identity, and the luxury of time and lack of true responsibility made that easy. But that “artist identity” rapidly became crowded out as I headed into adulthood, and sketching every now and then became more of a hobby. So how do I find myself once again “being an artist”?

As a busy adult, I don’t think I could find the necessary focus without some sort of structure to motivate me - otherwise I would always be too occupied with everything else to take the time.

Well, it was the notion of trying to create AND SELL a series of notecards with artwork depicting Vermont subjects that gave me that structure. It gave me a direction and the drive to continue moving on to that next image, then the one after that…. The notecard idea came out of a commission (from my then fiancée) to make an illustration for our wedding invitation. I liked the way it looked and thought other people might too. So I started seeking out other regional subjects, and this wasn’t hard (as you’ll know if you’ve ever been to Vermont).

We started the company GOODRICH INK and took advantage of our in-house artist to create the raw material for our product line. And I’ve been jumping from one image to the next ever since.

Learning Curve

I really took to the crisp line of black ink. And the challenge of working with India Ink, with no erasing or painting over. No room for mistakes. I took a Zen attitude in my earlier drawings, sitting down staring at the subject, then putting it down in ink, one line after the other, no stopping, no fear – just doing it till it was done. It was and is a mentally tiring exercise. I thought I would continue this initial commitment of never using pencil first to lay out the drawing, its proportions, etc. Eventually though, I cut myself some slack, and begin with some penciled in lines before beginning the ink drawing.

Some of the early no-pencil-allowed drawings included several churches (The Brick Church, Williston Federated…), and the Champlain Ferry.

The Unitarian Universalist Mtg House at the right illustrates the hazards of this approach. I started from the top of the page, and ran out of space for the bottom third of the building. Oops.

The Ferry should suggest the amount of focus and care required to get proportions and spatial relationships down in ink without reference to penciled-in guidelines. Soon after that one I decided I’d reduce the risk of mid-drawing disaster and began to pencil in the basic shapes before applying the permanent ink.

The St. Albans First Congregational Church was one of the first where I penciled out the building before using the ink. I remember this drawing feeling like a construction project, with first a framework going up in pencil, then the exterior façade slowly taking shape as I inked in brick walls.

This section’s title “Learning Curve” refers to the fact that I am a student of what I do, rather than an expert sharing my expertise by picture-making. I am learning as I go. Every drawing is a challenge, and every drawing teaches me something new. I grow in self- confidence and competence as I go.

Earlier on, upon finding a subject that grabbed my imagination, I would become a little anxious (can I do this? How will I go about doing this?) Over time, as I progressed from drawing to drawing, I began to shed this anxiety, gaining more and more self-confidence, as well as technique. Now, when I choose a subject, I’m not as fearful – however, I never have a clear picture in my mind of the end result, and so the project is a journey into the unknown. The mental imaging of the picture-to-be is cloudy and becomes clearer and clearer as I progress. The drawing instructs me.

I am on a learning curve.

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To be continued…..perhaps……someday