To Know the Dark: New Drawing Exploration

The Night of the December 15th Full Moon Was Magical

I woke up at 3:30 AM and then again at 5:30 AM and got some interesting photos of the moon surrounded by clouds as I stood outside in 24 degrees and total stillness. Peaceful and other-worldly to experience. I loved how the moonlight refracted into so many colors as the light passed through the clouds.

To Know the Dark

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.

To know the dark, go dark.

Go without sight,

and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

 and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings

by Wendell Berry

Settling In to a New Practice Takes Time

Once December was underway, I began to feel unsettled. The days grew shorter and colder and darker. There are only 14-15 days between the new and full moons and I wondered if I had made a mistake to write posts at each junction when I didn't know how this adventure would turn out. I had to remind myself this process is based on exploring, not producing. I am heading into this unknown in the darkest months of the year, the most challenging time for me personally and I am, as Berry writes, going without sight. I don't know where this will lead and while I love the not knowing, I can't help but be aware some readers may not.

Eventually I reassured myself that new ideas take time to unfold. I am committed to listening to my intuition and wisdom and trust that everything is moving along just as it should. I felt like I was gathering lots of wonderful information, but questioned how I could connect it all into some sort of cohesive form. I did a lot of research when the month started into lunar cycles (I soon discovered how little I know about the moon!) and every bit of information I discovered seemed to lead to more. The learning curve is exciting, but I was eager to begin trying out my new ideas.

Happily, between the new and full moon this month, I started settling into my intention to connect my art practice with my love of the natural world. I have continued to take photographs in the early morning or late at night when possible to capture some of the beauty of the moon, the landscape and to provide me with reference photos to translate into drawings.

Taking that First Leap of Faith

I took a deep breath, having never worked from reference photos before, and started.

I chose this photo of the hedgerow beyond the back field after a recent snow, and began to draw some samples from the reference image, above. I picked this image because it was easy to see the shapes and values. I knew staying simple was important to what I hope to create, inspired by the region where I live.

I began with a simple line drawing at the upper left of the top row and then started abstracting the reference photo more with each successive one. That's when it started to get really fun, when I stopped trying to make it look real.

While I kept trying variations, I had to continue to remind myself to relax, loosen up, enjoy, play - all those things we tell ourselves to do when we realize we are tense and barely breathing. But over the three or four days I worked on these, I started to see I could keep playing and improvising more and more. The reference photo was just an entry point! I played with: value, shape, warm and cool, intensity, edges, texture and line. I'm quite pleased with these even though at the same time I feel I am just scratching the surface of what it will be possible to imagine and create.

One of the next ideas that popped into my head is how I might do a daily warm up that could be a chronicle of each day of each lunar cycle, so next I divided a large piece of paper into 2" squares with some irregular ones along a few edges and started to fill each square with a simplified suggestion of a landscape. These too had tape around them, although some we media seeped under the tape - but hey, I liked that effect as well!

Again, I noticed when I felt relaxed and when I started tensing up. Doing samples worked best when I was fresh and felt receptive and just followed my instincts. I even began to add more color and that was definitely fun, working with water-based colored crayons, ArtGraf, graphite and sumi ink. There's thin washi tape between the squares that I'll remove when the whole piece is done and those will become white borders. If I want to, I can go back in and change anything I don't like before I take off the tape.

As I moved from being very organized and linear at the top of the piece to just responding and working in squares that spoke to me, I also shifted to ideas of rock and cliff formations using more color. That was definitely enjoyable as well. The marks on the background are Art Graf on wet paper and I find it easier to work in the squares that already have some marks in them - another type of entry point.

The piece in the middle was an unfinished 5 x 7 from my Full Circle Around the Sun appreciation project that I had the best time revisiting today. I suggested rocks and cliffs with a moon overhead and a petroglyph drawn in the rock shapes at the bottom.

It is more than reassuring to have fulfilled my intention for this Full Moon to actually start getting ideas on paper. I have a nice structure starting to develop so I can step into my studio each morning, grab a reference photo (or just use my imagination) and do a warm up. We'll see where that takes me between now and when the next New Moon arrives on December 30th. I definitely want to eventually make the pieces larger.

In the interim, while working on these I will also be: planning a Winter Solstice celebration for December 21st, celebrating Christmas Eve lunch with our children and grandchildren, learning more about Yule celebrations in Central and Eastern Europe, (where my German and Russian ancestors lived), writing a year end review of all the gifts this year has brought and seeding intentions for what I hope to see grow in the New Year!

Metta Prayer

May I be peaceful. May all beings be peaceful.

May I be happy. May all beings be happy.

May I be safe. May all beings be safe.

May I awaken to the light of my true nature.

May all beings awaken to the light of their true nature.

May I be free from suffering. May all beings be free from suffering.

I say this prayer daily to support and uphold all the goodness we are capable of creating in this world, if we just choose each day to express loving kindness to all beings.

Peace to all,

Jeanne

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