Drawing Thoughts

It's kind of a zen thing that folks who actually took art classes probably learned in "drawing day two," just after "securing the paper and selecting the medium." But those of us who took the "self-taught" route never got that memo - especially "mature" doodlers like myself who are peeking a couple of weeks ahead to the big double 7.

I realize I had read about something similar to this notion in the "spy-thriller" novels I favor. It is the ritual the sniper goes through before shooting the mafia kingpin meeting with a group of fellow wiseguys on the patio of a restaurant a few thousand yards away. He does some breathing exercises to reach "stage zero" where no internal quiver will disrupt the trigger pull or the bullet's trajectory. Bam. There goes the bad guy! It's sort of like that, but not really.

A little background. My hands shake. Not a function of my upcoming 77th birthday - been that way all my life. As a young theater-type in high school and college, I usually made sure I had something to lean against or hold onto when on stage to anchor the shakes. But interestingly, these days they don't shake when I am drawing. Except when; well, as you have seen I often draw myself into the proverbial corner of tiny little spaces. For example, take a look at Grand Canal image.

Those little colored pieces of sky and water are maybe a half inch by 1/8 inch. The rocks at the base of the buildings are even smaller. It is when coloring little spaces like that when the shakes threaten to re-emerge.

OK, take a quick look at the current project, Carriage Ride with Flowers, or something like that. Haven't really decided on a title yet:

The triangle is eight inches on the long base, and is there to give you an idea of scale. The "learning moment" occurred when trying to decide what kind of design should fill the empty spaces along each edge of the drawing. I wanted something botanical, but was hesitant to put pen to paper until I was more certain what that would like. So I decided to do a preliminary sketch that I could position around on the big drawing to see how it would look.

So I did one, then went a little OCD and cut it out so it wouldn't block any of the big drawing as I tested placement. Here is where I am on that:

OK. The cut out image is 12 x 7 inches. So those spaces inside the leaves get kinda tiny. And it was while creating them that the shakes began to raise their trembling head. I paused. And that is when I discovered - pure serendipity, no explanation - that if I drew the tiny little spaces by pulling the marker towards me while slowly exhaling there were no shakes.

And that's it: To cure the shakes take a breath, position the drawing implement so as to draw it towards you, and draw slowly as you exhale. It is OK to pause mid-stroke, just take another gentle breath, and then continue as you softly exhale.

I don't know if this insight warranted a Wall at all, let alone one this long, but it seemed cool to me! 😁