SKETCHBOOK

BRUSHWORK

Monday, June 16th, 2008 | Permalink

I prefer to think I’m just a man, not a poet part time, business man the rest….I’m no different from anyone else, just a run of the mine person. I like painting, books, poems. In my younger days I liked girls. But let’s not stress that. I have a wife.— Wallace Stevens

She said there ought to be one place you thought about and knew about and maybe longed for but never did get to see.— Alice Munro, “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”

I just doodle until I find a character; you go with the one that has a certain little spark of life….After that, I really can’t force them to do anything. They know what they want to do if they’re strong characters. And they surprise you! If they want to do something, there’s nothing I can do to stop them.—James Kochalka

At last I do not know how to draw anymore!— Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) at the end of his life

Some doodles I’ve been doing with a brush and ink.

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3 Comments on “BRUSHWORK”

  1. Austin Kleon Says:
    June 17th, 2008 at 8:58 am

    Forgot this:

    Lynda Barry on the power of the brush (via)

    Lynda Barry on the power of the brush (via)

  2. Mark Says:
    June 18th, 2008 at 8:30 pm

    Austin, what is it about the Toulouse-Lautrec line that speaks to you? What’s the context for his remark?

  3. Austin Kleon Says:
    June 19th, 2008 at 1:58 pm

    I don’t know for sure…which is probably why I like it.

    Henri Matisse mentioned it in one of his letters:

    It is only after years of preparation that the young artist should touch color– not color as description, that is, but as a means of intimate expression. Then he can hope that all the images, even all the symbols, which he uses, will be the reflection of his love for things, as a reflection in which he can have confidence if he has been able to carry out his education, with purity, and without lying to himself. Then he will employ color with discernment. He will place it in accordance with a natural design, unformulated and completely concealed, that will spring directly from his feelings; this is what allowed Toulouse-Lautrec, at the end of his life, to exclaim, “At last, I do not know how to draw anymore.”

    The painter who is just beginning thinks that he paints from his heart. The artist who has completed his development also thinks that he paints from his heart. Only the latter is right, because his training and discipline allow him to accept impulses that he can, at least partially, conceal.

    One of my co-workers ripped it off his Zen Calendar and gave it to me. I put it on the outside of my cubicle:

    the outside of my cubicle.

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