Pushing Charcoal

  Last night I drew with a fervor, almost as if I was on a strictly timed schedule.

  First the crisp, white piece of paper, which I realize now is not acid free and after working so many hours at Aaron Brothers, I know that it is not the best paper to create on. But never mind that, I had charcoal to use. 

   First I pick up the graphite stick, one of my favorite tools. It's hard to pick up and I have to search my art box in the dim light to find it. My fingers grasp it and it is as natural to me as if I were eating with a fork. It is a natural extension of my hand. I look at the page, and then the Mac that provides me a picture of what I want to sketch. With quick movements the graphite slides over the paper in great narrow and wide lines and already, with nothing but light grey charcoal on the page, it looks good. 

  My movements only get faster and faster as I fill in the basic drawing with color. I put a mixture of black and purple pastel in the trees and buildings. I sketch the yellow into the blank spaces and get irritated that it's the wrong shade. Oh, well, I have to keep moving forward, a mantra that carries from art into my real life. 

   

   My favorite part of this process though is pushing the colors around, blurring them, mixing them and making them fill in the texture of the page. I love the feeling of charcoal on my fingers, a greenish and purple mix and the way it makes me feel that I am in the midst of art itself. It makes me feel that I've done work that can be tangibly seen; it's like a mechanic that comes home with oil and grime in his fingernails or a craftsman that comes home with callouses. It is visible proof that I have worked. It's also cool to walk around with my elbows held perpendicular to the floor, my hands and fingers in the air.

  I add in the hot pink, which will be the lightest and brightest hue on the page, being the sun falling behind the clouds and casting a pink/ red glow onto the page. 

   I bring the picture into my bathroom where I proceed to spray it with hairspray; a poor man's (woman's) art fixative. It works so poorly that I can still lift pastel from the page onto my fingers, but that doesn't matter to me so much. What matters is that my fingers got dirty, covered in dust and color, my nails, filled with color particles, and that I got to create something of beauty. 

   Looking back now, I kind of wish I hadn't rushed through it, but that's part of the excitement. I am just concerned about my pervasive and  perpetual forward movement-my un-abating impatience. It doesn't help that I'm listening to Townes Van Zandt's "Flying Shoes" as I write this. 

   Oh well, I have something pretty to show for the half hour I spent working on it.