An inquiry to challenge my artistic skills

Making the best artistic decisions to communicate the world I see in my head.

Left: Quick gesture drawings to put visuals to the ideas in my head. Right: Contour drawing of a Raimond Staprans painting to loosen my muscles.

At the onset of this year, I began working through some preliminary sketches for an idea I had for a body of work. I wanted to capture the sky - the formation of clouds and their movement across the horizon. I went into a deep exploration - I saw something curious in the first set of gestures I made that made me realize I was ready to advance my artwork, to make it better.

I entered this deep inquiry with the urge to paint. Now, I’ve taken several painting courses during my undergrad but it’s never felt like the right vehicle for me. I thought, maybe this was the collection that would be the marker in the sand.

Clear gesso experiments to challenge my tools and explore different surfaces.

The two most interesting paintings from my experimentations.

After several failed attempts (failed attempts according to me), I realized I could instead learn a lot from painting. I could challenge myself to implement the qualities I like about painting in my drawings. How could I create brushstrokes with graphite? How could I create movement and texture without the ability to layer? How could I tell the same story in values instead of colors?

A series of sketches that begin to imitate in graphite the painting characteristics I enjoy.

This inquiry is encouraging me to learn how to move my materials in new and interesting ways. I’m getting much closer to an end destination - artwork where I feel I am making the best artistic decisions to communicate the world I see in my head.