This one’s accumulating over the course of many nights. An hour here, a half hour there. I think this page’s pencil work is done. Not sure if I’m going to continue the theme on the facing page. But I wanted to make sure to document the progress before I did anything truly destructive to it.

I’m bound to mess this up.

The process of doing these is pretty fun because I have no idea what my intentions are from start to finish.

Couldn’t leave it at just one today. References anna☆morosini‘s photo “cold cold.“

I’ve had a lot rolling around in my head lately — specifically around how to go about being a “real” artist. Being a “real” artist is merely a concept. It doesn’t actually mean anything. It’s not something measurable or tangible or even universally definable.

But I have this Platonic ideal of what an artist is. And I am not this thing.

For a long time now, I have been privately fighting an uphill battle to find a looser technique in my [occasional] work. To find less precision in my linework. To find more expressiveness in my gestures. To convey something demonstrably human-made, I guess. And today, I decided to stop fighting the nature of what I am decidedly good at: tightness.

So much of what I do is so measured, calculated, controlled. And perhaps a bit cold because of it. This goes well beyond pencil sketches and into every facet of my living day.

So I’ve decided to embrace these traits in what I do now. I’m going to push this aspect of me that I’ll never be able to shake out of my being.

But I still want to find a sense of looseness. I want to learn to give up control. I want to learn not to hold that which I create as precious. And so I started a new sketchbook today. I’m calling it my Obscure, Destroy Sketchbook, and I’ve got some simple goals and parameters:

• Each sketch must consume the entire 2-page spread.
• Each sketch must in some way obscure or destroy the under-work in some way.
• Each sketch must use at least one color.

I want to examine controlled destruction. I want to build up and tear down and watch the interplay between the two acts. I want to have no idea of the outcome. I want to have intention, but I want to let the “now” lead me where it may.

Maybe along the way I’ll manage to create a compelling image. Here’s hoping.

Odopod updates odosketch, so I do a new sketch. You can watch an animation of its creation over here:

The Light on odosketch.

Sometimes you gotta draw the obvious stuff.

Graphite in the Moleskine. Something to do while I wait for a bunch of BSG episodes to download.

It’s already mid-February, and I’ve seriously neglected to post anything I’ve been working on. Well, today I did a quick sketch of a girl. First I’ve done in some time. It’s graphite on Bristol board. Probably about 4″ x 6″.

I just wanted to get something down on paper that had some evidence of the human hand in it. I’ve been doing the computer stuff so much these past few weeks that my precious pencils were starting to feel sad. I’ve got a lot of digital stuff in the hopper right now, but I’m going to try to do at least one quick sketch or something a week to stay in practice.

Happy Friday!