EDM Challenge #153: Something in a Plastic Bag

Mark this day...something new is afoot: color...my first blog drawing in color. (...entering Oz.)

EDM #197: Draw a Remote

There has been some discussion about growing artistically through participation in the Everyday Matters Group. I can wholeheartedly attest to this phenomenon.
One of the latest challenge is to draw a remote. Just to illustrate the artistic progress that I personally see that I have made since joining in on the EDM challenges, I am posting this drawing of a TV remote that I did back in May 2007-the month and year I started this blog. (I didn't post it earlier because-in my naivete-I didn't think it was much of anything.)
It is one of the first drawings I did after reading Danny Gregory book: Creative License. Even though I had always thought of myself as a creative person, I hadn't really deliberately drawn much of anything prior to this. So, I guess I'm saying that-to me-there has been a rewarding progression in my own work-looking at this drawing and what I have drawn since, spurred on by my participation in EDM...so, thanks to all.

Now a year and a half later, however, I am in the equivalent of "writer's block". I look at the recent drawings I have completed (which I am very happy with) and I think to myself: "who did these?..."I don't have any recollection of doing any of these strokes or choosing those colors". It is an odd paradox to be experiencing, to be looking at my own drawings and feeling like they are the vestiges of some kind of 'creative wave' I caught at particular times but that-now-the 'wind' has subsided and the shoreline has receded...and how can one conjure or pursue something that seems to originate outside of oneself to begin with?
Don't get me wrong. I realize the potency of conundrums like this...and so be it if my drawing production level is on a slow burn. I know the key is to put oneself on the path through practice and to be willing to relearn everything with a beginner's mind...and to just outright claim one's talent; but...damn.
...just waxing about the artistic process, fellow artist.

(Originally posted Nov. 08, 2008)

Nonetheless, it hasn't been a total desert. I did do this 2 minute blind contour drawing of EDM #14: Draw the First Thing You See When You Wake Up in the Morning!
...yeah, right.

EDM #151: Free Choice

This is a still-life of a corner place in our living room.
I was experimenting with a water-soluble graphite pencil. It is obviously difficult to control the clarity of things with this particular art supply; but, I can definitely see the potential for some interesting effects.

EDM #110: Something with flames

I remember very vividly when this exhibition hall burned-in 1976. Back before I really knew anything about Buckminster Fuller, I was genuinely impressed by this geodesic structure when I walked through it during Expo '67 in Montreal. So later, when I saw the footage of this archetypal form on fire, I was mesmerized. (What a visual!)
Just the other day, I happened to be looking through an old publication from the seventies when I came across this news photo from that time. Through the act of freehand drawing it from that historical photograph, I was mesmerized again...such is the power of art.
(Apologies to fellow EDM'rs: this is not really an 'everyday' fire!)

EDM #148: Soothing

There is something very soothing about anticipating and then walking out to the end of a very long wooden pier, into the heart of a vast marsh with absolutely no one around...the sound of sea-birds and waves crashing onto a wild, sandy beach way off to the east. This is one such pier I traversed while visiting the beautiful coastal islands of South Carolina-during the cold Christmas holiday.

This drawing is very similar to another one I did several months ago. An unintentional series seems to be developing.