​FAST FORWARD
Fast forward and -skim through days , months  , places, countries, many faces , many moods and reach today ---and press on Play.
Time has  flown , with me exploring the world of Arts. Reading, going  to Museums and Exhibitions. Watching other artists, talking and listening to their experiments, their journey----do not feel I have wasted precious time .
I sketch almost every day , with pencil, charcoal, or pens on napkins, any bits of paper, even toilet paper at times .Practice practice , keeping that hand moving .Maybe one day I will clock in the hundred thousand hours one needs to become a master …….I just do not keep track.
  Now I  see the angles, curves, lines , planes , shapes instead of objects . Even people now appear to me made up of planes, and shapes . Sometimes it is a little bit scary ….. especially when I am mentally sketching anyone I am talking too.
I see the sky and it is no long blue ----there is grey ,mauve, pink all the colours of the rainbow .  The water is brown, green, purple , ----it is a whole new world . I never really knew what I was missing .
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time  “  
(Four Quartets , TS Eliot .)
It was in “The Silent Raga” by Ameen Merchant   and I can relate to the writing . There is so much to explore ,so much to learn.

SUBWAY DIARY
“ A strong structure needs solid  foundations ,A  good drawing is the necessary foundation to strong  art,and time spent on mastering the basics is invaluable ”
Keeping the above in mind , I draw  and draw –everyday , all the time –actually, whenever I have nothing else to do. On the subway, in the waiting room of the dentist’s or the doctor, there am I with my little notebook and a stub of a pencil , doodling away . All my purses now have scraps of paper with little things scribbled on them. 
Now writing has become secondary ----instead I draw ---with a pencil, or a pen or a crayon. 
When I see faces I am mentally drawing lines, angles, curves and facets . When I look at scenes , I see darks oand lights and think which geometrical shape a particular area fits into . 
I draw in my dreams too sometimes and wake in the middle of the night with a perfect drawing in my head –sadly it has disappeared by morning –all I can remember is that it was perfect…
These scribbles maybe my inspiration some day –I start my SUBWAY  DIARY and save them in it . 


  
PS –Figures in the diaries , have no facial likeness to any persons . Only gestures are  drawn and if anybodies  did inadvertently become my muse, they were informed and only if they allowed were the drawings on my blog. 

    

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Black is Black –or is it ?

Black is the absence of colour or is it ? It is the complete absorption of light

A black writing pencil has Graphite and is really a deep grey . Graphite is a different form of natural carbon like a diamond but is soft . It has a metalllic sheen and powdered is mixed with different porportions of clay and surrounded by wood to form pencils . The different quantities of clay decide the hardness or softness of the pencil.  Softer the pencil, darker are the lines . Unfortunately the lines can never be really really dark like black because of the shine which gets worse the more it is layered . Also graphite lines cannot be covered by either oil paints or charcoal, the metallic quality shuns these .

To make blacks really black, we need carbon as carbon, in its original form. The powdery is also combined with clay to form pencils of varying softness. A carbon pencil can be sharpened to a point and is excellent for really dark blacks without a shine . Detailed work can be done as it can be sharpened .

Charcoal , the basic burnt wood, or ivory or bones  has coarser particles which disperse light and so is less black than the carbon pencil ,but both can be easily blended,  brushed off and  can be covered with graphite and oil paint They so are good for doing the under drawing for a painting on canvas . Charcoal  is great for drawing textures especially in larger areas.

So much to learn ……even about the absence of colour !!!!

 

 

What do I draw on ? .

I am no historian, but I think our ancestors needed something to put their thoughts down on .There was no script,  no language . They had  fingers to gesticulate with , and drawing on wet ground or sand must have  resulted  in very sore fingers .

Ancient rock etchings tell us pictures speak volumes,  but it would have been a slow and labouriou . In the quest for an easier and efficient communication through pictures , the paper finally evolved and now of course we have even gone digital.

Pictures are so important . For an ordinary person like me a picture says it all  ! I must confess I read the Illustrated Classics Comics of the Classics and never the originals.

I  know there are different kinds of paper.  The texture of the surface of the paper decides what materials should be used to draw or paint with.

Drawing with Graphite requires a smooth paper. If it too smooth , the paper will feel good to draw on but the graphite might just slide off. Crayons and Charcoals and other dry media require papers with a texture or a tooth. The little dips between the teeth could be difficult to fill in , giving the art work a spotted ,mottled look. But if meticulously filled in with tha sharp point or brushed in , the material holds and does not dust off easily. Luckily today we have a vast range and can choose whatever suits  us.

I need to sharpen my pencils now .