Next Sketch Outing
Saturday, Sept. 13: Georgetown Steam Plant
Sofa, davenport, settee, chesterfield, divan, canapé... "It's just a couch!" as Kevin Spacey insists in American Beauty. And now it's just clutter in the basement of a downstairs vintage store in Fremont. Along with these lovely dolls with the photoprinted faces of someone's granddaughters and a purse made of buttons, a clock shaped like a life-preserver and an "I wuv you THIS much!" statue. American culture at its finest.
Another couple of hours sitting in this vintage mall. There's an endless supply of subjects, all arranged into still lifes just for me to sketch. I wonder how long until I feel I've been there, done that.
Of all the different approaches to sketching, this is my favorite. Starting without any pencil or guiding marks, ignoring the hues, not choosing a focal point. It's more a meditation on contour and assemblage. The notion of "a mistake"- whether in perspective or proportion, omission or placement- becomes moot. A clutter of things I don't recognize and can't name allows me to see not "the thing," but rather "this bend meeting that point, and this line almost parallels that one." I don't stop until I can't see anything else to draw and then I'm sort of bummed to be finished- surprised that so little, or so much, time has passed.
