Hermit Diary 55. Inside, Outside, and Elsewhere

Interior with rubber tree and straw angels. Sailor fude-nib fountain pen on paper, 9" x 6".

I've been trying to draw and paint more regularly. It's therapy, and it's a joy, and it's a way to remember who I am -- as well as, I suppose, record who I was. My sketchbooks are just as much a diary as a written one, but that reminds me of my recurrent dream where I'm seated at the piano and required to play, except that what's on the music stand isn't a musical score but a painting. Somehow, I start playing what I see, and in the dream, it seems to make sense...

For someone who works in both words and in images, as well as being a musician, that dream feels all too real, and it makes me ask the question of whether a diary of one's days isn't just as valid if it is drawn as when it is written. Of course, the two can be merged together, as I guess I sometimes do here on my blog. But because I often find words (and especially, my own words) tedious, I like the idea of "reading" a sketchbook in order to discern something about a person's life.

Orchid and quilt. Sailor fude-nib fountain pen on paper, 9" x 6".

When I look through my drawings of the past year, however, I don't think anyone else could tell we're in the middle of a pandemic. Taken in the context of all the other sketchbooks from other years, it's clear that the artist often goes other places, and hasn't in a long while. But otherwise, except for a couple of pages at the beginning where the chaotic state of my mind was evident, all I can detect is a turn toward more color, the same objects appearing repeatedly, and occasional forays into places I've visited, mainly Mexico City, Sicily, and Greece.

As we near the one-year mark of isolation, in another month, in the middle of yet another winter, I can tell you that I am intensely tired of these walls and these two rooms. I've been going up to my studio a couple of afternoons a week, and managed to do a painting of Sicily this week.

Segesta, Sicily. Watercolor, 12" x 9".

I was working on a Cartiera Magnani "Toscana" watercolor block, which is very different from my usual Arches paper: much more absorbent and "cottony", without sizing. Although the colors immediately sank into the paper and were both harder to manipulate and less vibrant, I found I was liking the effect, the difference in feeling, and not being able to rely on a practiced technique. I painted everything until the very end with a 1/2-inch dagger brush from Rosemary & Co., and that was a departure too. Sometimes it's good to shake things up. And it's good to go places in our imaginations, and in the books we read and the drawings we do. For now, that has to suffice.

Comments

[Robb]

Kia Ora Beth...I drove out to a spot in the foothills if the Ruahine and went for a walktoday. I couldn’t help but think of how fortunate we here in New Zealand to simply be able to do that. Kia Kaha e hoa. Be safe and be well.
Arohanui,
Robb

[Roderick Robinson]

Some paintings are easier to sing/play than others. It's the hemi-demi-semi quavers that would defeat me in Hogarth's Gin Alley. As for any of Turner's "light" masterpieces I'd tend towards Debussy's atmospheric, rhythm-less style - but so far French songs other than the Marseillaise have defeated me. However I feel sure that one of Gainsborough's landscapes could be made to fit an adjusted version of Brahms' Alto Rhapsody. Modigliano's obvious, it got to be Satie.

[Marly Youmans]

What a good recurring dream...

And how pleasant to see where your mind and hand travel, near or far. I like the variation in modes here.

Hope all is getting better for you and Jonathan, despite all.