Seeing bread
Drawing is seeing. If you can see, you can draw. But can you see?
Let's see.
Looking is a language. Look: a dog, a tree, a car, a man. We apply labels
to things in order to understand and process them. In Genesis, God has Adam name the animals. Labels makes abstract thinking possible. But because we over do it, looking replaces seeing and we soon stop seeing things for what they truly are. We say 'tree' and stop saying 'elm', stop saying 'thirty year old elm, with silvery bark missing in fist sized circles on the eastern half of its trunk, 37 foot 8 inch elm with 37,437 leaves, some mustard colored, others sap green", and we completely miss going to the next level where language fails us all together, where things are so specific they can have no name, where they are absolutely real.
This is where drawing comes from. When you can look at something slowly and carefully and refuse to see it for anything but what it is - at this very moment - in this light - from this angle. And as you begin to see, you cease to be the many things that limit you. You drop judgments, cultural biases, history, and baggage. Time slows, and then disappears. All you feel is the pen on the paper, the slow cutting drag of the nib against the grain till even that sensation fades away too. You don't think about art or what people will say or whether you are inept or ugly or stupid or self indulgent. You stop thinking about bills and aches and grievances and chores. You, your pen, your paper, your subject, you just are.
You sink deeper and deeper as you see more and more. You draw the edges and then the textures, the shadows, the textures and shadows within textures and shadows. The orange, the tree, the body you are drawing is just a landscape your eyes traverse. Your line takes you through adventures and surprises, over hill and down valley, into light and through shade. And eventually your journey brings you home again and you feel your pen thud back against the dock, the door step, and the world slowly cranks back up again like the merry-go-round it is and you come back to all your senses, sharpened, refreshed, renewed.
On your paper, there's a map of your trip, a souvenir, only as accurate as the clarity of your vision. Keep it if you want, frame it, sell it, but it won't matter - every twist and turn of the trip itself will be seared into your mind.
Are you ready to give it a try?
A record of my exploration into all aspects of drawing, illustrated journaling, creativity, and the inspiring aspects of art. By the author of "Everyday Matters," "The Creative License", and "An Illustrated Life" and other books.
Comments
bread will never be the same again.
beautiful.
Posted by: andrea | January 12, 2004 11:07 PM
damn straight I am!!
bread IS beautiful...and delicious!
my husband is a huge fan of your TinTin pieces..he's loved TinTin since the 70s! But I drew the line when his hair started growing in like the kid a few months back..not that he tried to do it, but I'm sure he would have gladly left it like that, had I not intervened!!
Posted by: Ames | January 13, 2004 04:27 AM
I just discovered this site through a link from another blog...I love it, your art and your philosophy on life, so succinctly summed up in your site's title. I think I have found myself a regular read! ...and I just went to Amazon and ordered your book, and Mr. Wares as well... thanks for inspiring me to do something with that sketchbook I purchased from Borders the other day...I always used to sketch in my diaries...time to give my Wacom a rest and start doing that again!
Posted by: PunkClown | January 13, 2004 07:59 AM
WOW. This is something I am struggling with in my drawing - SEEING rather than falling back into the lazy symbols... every time I draw I'm getting a little closer to abandoning the shorthand and drawing what's REAL.
Thanks Danny - you are a continuing inspiration !
Posted by: Caitlin | January 13, 2004 09:17 AM
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Yes !
A terrific little lesson.
Thank you.
Dhyana
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Posted by: dhyana rose | January 13, 2004 09:39 AM
real deep stuff. you always make so much sense. i think i forgot how it used to feel like, drawing that is. sometimes you get so caught up in just completing a project you forget that you're supposed to enjoy the process :)
Posted by: gera | January 13, 2004 10:30 AM
That was beautiful, and yes, inspiring. I have already tried drawing again:)
Posted by: finelyspungirl | January 13, 2004 04:41 PM
When you can look at something slowly and carefully and refuse to see it for anything but what it is - at this very moment - in this light - from this angle.
To me, this is where drawing (or art for that matter) gets interesting. No one else sees what you see. The drawing is not about the subject matter, but rather how the artist sees the subject matter. Far more interesting than a detailed documentation of what everyone "agrees" to see.
Excellent site, sorta comfy around here. I think I will be back again, hope you don't mind.
Posted by: griff@ultramicroscopic.com | January 13, 2004 05:31 PM
Yes!
I know that place... moving into the no-name-ness of what is there and actually seeing the feeling of it, rich and what I live for lately.
So this is a wonderful thing you do and I want to do it too... I did a site for my move to California:http://www.lihertzidesign.com/LisBIGadventure.html which is sorta blog-like, but I have no idea how to do a real one with commentary boxes and daily editions sent out to a list. Must I pay for this from someone? I imagine so, nothing being free and all of that... do you have a reccomenation?
LI
Posted by: li | January 14, 2004 12:25 AM