drawing//derive

On Sunday, I did a drawing exercise to loosen up. I've seemed to have gotten in a rut of being extremely careful with my drawings, and it's not that I don't appreciate their delicacy, but I wanted to get back to a more gestural mark. I drew for five and a half hours without stopping: an hour of one-minute drawings, an hour of three-minute drawings, six-minute, fifteen-minute, and finally finished one drawing for the last hour. It could be called a drawing derive because I didn't know where I was going, just drew whatever I saw or thought of or a random picture from my computer, and stopped and moved on when the bell rang every so often. It was a good exercise in scratching for a few subjects I've been thinking about lately and needed to draw more, such as moths and water, and also in re-finding some abstract forms.

I was totally strung out and loopy afterwards. As Jay said, "I'd worked myself through." Figuring this was an interesting mental state and feeling like I needed to get outside, I went on an "acutal" derive. I found a place where many of the little ferns I've seen were growing on the same wall, saw grasses blowing in the wind, and eventually came to my street in a round-about way. I honestly don't recall much else of the walk--it was hard for me to take anything in at that point--only that my lower body was at once very heavy and my torso and head were very light, like I was in a strung out mountain pose.