At the beginning of the lockdown, mid March, and I could not get into my studio, I started drawing with pencil and paper. When I finally got back into the studio sometime in April, I started incorporating the drawings into my encaustic mixed media paintings.
Last year a friend of mine who is an art professor at a nearby university visited my studio and I was telling him that I wanted to incorporate my drawings into my paintings instead of using my phototransfers. He said- well, you don’t really have to as it’s essentially the same, but start if you want because drawing is so fundamental to any creative practice.
I have always loved drawing since I was little- is that not when the love affair with creating begins? Especially when you are a child and you can actually make something look like it is. It’s like unlocking a mystery and you have the key. And now 40 some years later, it is still a learning process. And it’s still a mystery. And it’s still a process to get lost in.
The Dragonfly
Today I saw the dragonfly
Come from the wells where he did lie.
An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk: from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
He dried his wings: like gauze they grew;
Thro’ crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew.
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Found this poem about the dragonfly and it feel hopeful- a living flash of light….