What a mess

Sorry in advance if this comes out a bit crabby.  I'm not, really, but my neck's out (for those new to the program, it's a recurring thing.  One of the least pleasant things my mother left me was her bad neck) and I'm really not looking forward to the headache I'm going to have later in the day.  I'm also not looking forward to moving in general, but I don't have too much choice in that matter if I want to get anything done with my weekend.

Oh, and today's pointless photo?  Is it just me, or do young rhubarb leaves look juuust a little too much like green brains?

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If you'll indulge me somewhat (and you will, since it's my blog.  My house, my rules), we're going to talk art today.  Or, in my case, "art".  I'm not an artist, I'll never claim to be an artist, but I do like to doodle.  I also occasionally like to pollute the internet with my doodles (see other blog on the sidebar if you're into that kind of time-wasting).  It's odd to me, putting any of my stuff out there.  For years no one really knew that I drew at all.  I kept it to myself.  Even at work they didn't know... and the reason I mention work is that it was work that inadvertently made me slightly -- slightly -- more comfortable with making my doodles public.  You see, I wanted to do a display to go with a program on edible plants that I was putting together, and working as I do for a non-profit society I wouldn't have been able to afford republishing rights to any of the copyrighted material out there.  Add that to the fact that I'm not especially comfortable with pirating things for display use, and what was left?  Well, if I wanted illustrations for my text I'd have to turn illustrator.  The funny thing is that if I'd been doing it now instead of back in the dark ages, I simply would have taken some digital photos of plants and printed things out on the colour photocopier.  As it was then, though, I did some quick black and white sketches and very literally cut-and-pasted them onto my posters.

Yeah.  I meant literally there.  This really was back in the dark ages.

Anyway, I suppose that could be looked at as my debut in illustration.  Sorry... "illustration".  They're still just doodles as far as I'm concerned.  I've gone on to do more of the display thing over the years (including a colour version of the edible plants once we had the desktop publishing and scanning capabilities in-house), and gradually I've been finding myself doing more drawing just for my own pleasure as well.

This is where things get messed up, by the way.

When I'm doodling at work, obviously the thing I'm doodling has to look like the thing I'm doodling.  It's for identification purposes, after all.  The thing I'm doodling also has to be easily reproducible, and with very little jiggering around.  I don't have time for that kind of stuff, believe me.  Now, those requirements have led me, accidentally or not, to have a style (insofar as I even have one) that's fairly unfussy, reasonably clean, and realistic enough that it's not hard to guess what I'm aiming for.  Clear, I suppose is what I'm trying to say.  And that's fine for work.

I'm noticing that it's increasingly not fine for play, though.

I'd like to play more, and I haven't been.

My sketchbooks are clean.  Too clean.  Kind of boring.  Not bad to look at, but not terribly creative.  If it's meant to be play it really should have more play in it, I figure.  The problem is, I've been so in the habit of being clean that the thought of messing up a book with a little bit of play is hard to handle.  I won't say it's full-on anxiety attack or anything like that; it's more like this book's been going pretty well so far, and I don't want to make it NOT go well by mucking about.

But I think I need to.

The solution?  Baby steps.  I think I mentioned a few months back that I'd bought a small, pocket-sized moleskine sketchbook?  I designated it my mess book.  My play space.  I doodled (messily.  Yay me) all over the insides of the covers to start it off messy, in hopes that my olf self could get over the new-book-must-stay-perfect part.  I've been taking it with me to places where I know I might have time to waste, and I've been doodling (roughly.  Yay me).  I've even "wasted" pages just practicing shapes with a brush pen, which I'd never do in one of my "good" books.

And now (biiig breath)... I think I'm ready for the next phase.

I'm going mixed media.

That's right, I'm going to have a sketchbook that has more than just pen and ink drawings in it.  I'm going to wrinkle pages.  I'm going to use resist.  I'm going to collage. I'm going to buy some gesso, ferpityssake.

I'm going to make a mess, and I'm going to enjoy it.

Will it change anything?  Will I be able to use the word "art" on the blog without putting quotes around it?  Will I stop insisting that I'm just a doodler?






Probably not.  But if it does do anything for me, that'll be cool.  If it doesn't, that'll be cool.  It's not like any of this is being graded in the end.

Um, thus endeth the blather for the day.  Honestly?  I didn't quite intend for it to get this far anyway.  Ah well.  Type at you later.  If my neck's no worse...