Notes on notes
Doing my homework for color theory class this week, I discovered I had made the sort of thing I had always admired. It's a great feeling , to look at your own work, and say, "Hey, that's how you do that!" and see that you just did. The thing I made was not just a watercolor of an orange - but a page with little swatches of color and handwritten notations that, as a composition, captured the process I went through in making the picture.
There's a fair amount of carelessness in the whole thing which evokes the way I was working but there's also a progression that shows how I was learning and experimenting.
This is the tip of the iceberg of what I am realizing is my aesthetic.
I have always been very drawn to notebooks and diaries and I see now that this is primarily because of the way they look. When I was a kid, I was a big fan of Gerald Durrell and wanted to be a naturalist or a vet. I also loved drawing maps and making books. Perhaps that's where this taste for logs and sketches and latin names first began.
I remember going to an exhibition of diaries at the Morgan Library a few years ago and there was a huge book that contained a captain's log, kept in the 18th century. The book was open to a spread that contained a painted map surrounded by spidery calligraphy. I could feel the voyage in those two pages, the creaking of the ship at night as the captain filled in his log and drew the map.
Field manuals kept by botanists and naturalists also have this palimpsest aesthetic; that's part of why I love the work of Richard Bell, Roz Stendahl and Hannah Hinchman. Not just a report on nature but nature itself invading the report, smudges and fingerprints, taped-down specimens, random thoughts inspired by the moment, teeny gestural sketches surrounding a carefully rendered drawing. My old pal, Walton Ford, does this to a T, making enormous, spectacular watercolors that evoke 19th century explorers and are meticulously rendered. His work has put me to shame since we met at sixteen.
I am in full sympathy with Bill Gates for paying as much as he did for Leonardo's Codex, not just because it contains the discoveries of one of the greatest minds to ever ride around on human shoulders but because of how beautiful it as, the sepia drawings, the mirror handwriting, the thick parchment pages.
When I was in college, I knew a rather crafty fellow named Brody Neuenschwander who was pursuing a course of independent study, hand grinding his on pigments and illuminating manuscripts. I'm not sure where such a major ultimately lead him, though he did do the calligraphy in a few Peter Greenaway movies, but what a wonderful way to spend your time. Thanks to Google, I just discovered this.
I have always liked Peter Beard's diaries; for a couple of years he had his work on display in SoHo and we went many times to look through his huge diaries, filled with photocollages and the phone numbers of his famous friends. I also love architects� plans, those perfect sketches, wonderfully strange lettering, elevations and notes and marginalia. You can feel the ideas unfolding. And skritchy scratchy dip pens like the ones Ralph Steadman uses, spraying inkblots all over the words.
(I've never been that much of a fan of Nick Bancock's work. I find his stories muddled but worse of all, it's all artificial and seems like much of it was computer generated to simulate real letters and postmarks and the like).
I have a big collection of old diaries, ought at flea markets and on eBay and best of them, particularly the travelogues, have this layered, lived-in feelings that is wonderful. The same goes for collections of old letters, stacked and tied with faded ribbon.
Of course, computers threaten this aesthetic. Biologists and naturalists, explorers and cartographers use laptops now and everything is rendered on the web. Fat chance that there will be musty piles of old servers found behind cobwebs or that this blog will be enshrined in a dusty vitrine some day.
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
Wow...you knew Brody in college? I have had the pleasure of taking a calligraphy workshop with him a couple of years ago. His work is definitely inspiring! He brought a video of his calligraphy that was projected on the building walls of Bologna's square when they celebrated a major anniversary. His weapon of choice for most of that video? A pen made out of a pop can taped to a dowel. Yes, he is just THAT good. But then again, you knew that ;). Thanks for posting his site. I had no idea that he had one. Funniest story he told us at the workshop: writing on Ewan McGregor's bare thighs in Pillow Book. (ooohh...why couldn't I get that job?) *LOL*
Posted by: Rain | March 25, 2004 03:06 PM
The images here are beautiful and I am looking forward to careflly reading this entry, not just stitting here at my desk wishing I had my inks. Have you ever played with liquid watercolors? Cheap, lovely, and not precious so the color can be freely, wonderfully used...
take care,
Rachael
Posted by: rachael | March 25, 2004 03:29 PM
Rachael:
Yurp. In fact that painting on top was done with Dr. Martin's fab watercolors.
Thanks for liking.
Your pal,
Danny
Posted by: Danny | March 25, 2004 03:35 PM
You might enjoy the work of Cathy Johnson, as well. Fabulous naturalist and watercolorist.
Posted by: Karen Winters | March 25, 2004 07:29 PM
Ah Danny! Another great posting, and thanks for that link! Fascinating! Now...what if your site pages were printed out on archival quality paper using archival quality inks...??
Posted by: PunkClown | March 26, 2004 06:06 AM
Oh, Dr. Martins. The colors are so beautiful I want to taste them, or rub them all over my skin. Your color studies are marvelous.
Posted by: peth | March 26, 2004 08:31 AM
"Fat chance that there will be musty piles of old servers found behind cobwebs or that this blog will be enshrined in a dusty vitrine some day."
*heh*
when i worked at Kodak in Rochester several years ago, there was still the ongoing debate over whether "traditional" imaging media would eventually render digital imaging obsolete.
Even for those people who don't love the process of creating one's own images from a negative, the magic of burning images with light and pulling them out of wet, submerged paper in the dark, we all are still captured by the FEEL of an image on paper.
Viewing an image of your great gramdmother or reading the newest fiction, is just not the same as a phosphor image trapped behind a glass screen as it is on a paper skin. A paper photo -- we can hold it, stroke it, put it in our pockets and slip them into the sides of mirrors.
Glass is cold, paper warms to the touch. Glass is smooth, paper is rough. Paper absorbs our sweat and tears and retains the jelly from our breakfast. It interacts and reacts.
Another thing I learned at Kodak and, interestingly, on my current job designing kitchen cabinetry, is that trees never die. Wood panels and paper sheets expand and contract, they *breathe*.
So I wonder if it is human nature, this tactile, sensual relationship we have with paper, with words and images laying with paper, the intermingling of a tree's soul and ours, that will create a continued need to read our news from inky newspapers spread out on the floor with our morning coffee, to curl up with a good read and tear through the pages, to treasure old, faded photos of long-dead relatives and new shiny ones of sunsets and birthday parties, to walk into a used bookstore and delightedly breathe in deeply the smell of musty life, anticipating the worlds and secrets awaiting us.
Yes, I think paper is a worthy vessel of souls, a worthy confidant of our inner thoughts and ideas, receiving our words and images without judgement, holding them faithfully and reflecting back to us our truth and beauty.
Posted by: pixie | March 26, 2004 09:51 AM
Oh, Danny! You spoke my heart today. Thanks for every day you write and draw and paint.
Posted by: Jane | March 26, 2004 10:14 AM
Danny,
I just love those studies. Makes me long to start some of my own up again.
Yes, I agree about the beauty of tactile artwork/writing/documnets. These kinds of things have a history and life. A subtleness of line and color that can't be faked. It's the texture of the surface, thin &thick of the wash and the energy flowing from the hand to create.
Something printed out from the computer, trying to substitute for real watercolor or painting, etc., has never flown with me. I'll still experiment with the computer from time to time, but my real "fine" art is always dearer.
As for Nick Bantock..his being a bit too refined or slick & computer-y isn't a problem for me. I just love the images themselves, the idea of making a book like that. But I know where you are coming from... It had a lot of potential to be more mysterious/textured/spontaneous...
Pixie!!
What a wonderful comment! I drank it in..
So true! Beautiful.
Posted by: Amy | March 26, 2004 10:21 AM
thanks amy!!
*beam*
i love how writing - even a reply in someone's blog - helps me discover and share wonderful things i never realized :) on top of danny's recent fantastic paper entry, i think i have a new love in my fresh awareness of paper!! ;)
and *oops* i meant to write "will digital imaging make traditional imaging obsolete" but inverted it. i have the oddest dyslexia at times ;)
and danny i was so absorbed with the idea of paper, i forgot to also comment about how much i love the studies you've shared w/us! i love how the content and compostion tells a story, and how the colors in their blocks have their own identity, and then give themselves up to the identity of the orange... i'm also simply a color whore, and would love even the relational color blocks themselves! ;)
yea, i love when i'm focused on the process and then the process somehow took form and became cohesive and i can look at the final product - and every once in a rare while, i am amazed at how i somehow managed to capture a line "just so" and i think "holy cow, i did that?!". so cool.
i'm dying for some of those water colors too! /goes off to dickblick to drooool.. ;)
(sorry, i always have a lot to say. just call me spewpixie ;) )
Posted by: pixie | March 26, 2004 03:08 PM
I am relieved that another artist isn't much of a fan of Nick Bantock. I ordered "Griffin and Sabine" and was disappointed when I got it - it didn't seem to live up to the reviews I had read of it.
Thanks for another wonderful entry, Danny.
Posted by: Emily | March 27, 2004 05:57 PM
DANNY
Posted by: Patricia Piotter | March 28, 2004 11:09 PM
DANNY,
I am so sorry, my entire post after the greeting disappeared.
I enjoy all of your posts, but the last one was just outstanding ! The ears were fun to veiw, and I am sure, fun to do. Your spontaneous work really inspires me. Pigging out on pigment was wonderful---full of life, it showcased the texture of the paper and the vitality of color. It amazes me how a "study" or a working assignment in a class can be so beautiful in itself. (if I had yours I would frame and hang it)
I enjoyed the piece on Art Guera, it is so interesting to know that people like him are out there.
I rarely post because I am truly a novice at all of this but I just had to tell you how much I enjoyed this post, I rarely spend time in the city any more but I feel that I see it through your eyes, what a treat ! I just wanted to say how much I appreciate all that you give of yourself, you are very generous !!!
THANK YOU,
Patricia Piotter
Posted by: Patricia Piotter | March 28, 2004 11:25 PM
Your work is some of the best I have ever seen!
http://journals.aol.com/fisherkristina/SometimesIThink
Posted by: Kristina | May 22, 2004 02:40 AM