Afternoon Fix

I reach a point nearly every day now where I feel a hankering to get my creative fix via restorative neuroart.

Today:

Grabbed a piece of unsolicited mail printed on good card stock. Turned it to its blank side.

Reached for my container of ink pens.

Cast my eyes about for something I could use as a reference for a sketch, wondering how blind contour drawing and the rounding-the-corners nature of neuroart might marry.

Way fun.

Love the organic unavoidable imprecision of blind contour drawing.

Love the inner hush that comes from the neuroart practice of smoothing all the linear intersections.

Love this little sketch.

A Kind of Miracle, I'd Say
3.25 x 8"; ink on card stock
abstract blind contour sketch
2022

On Stage

My latest neurographic art, with all its many embedded backstories. Thanks for joining me behind the seens.

 

There Is Always More to Tell Than Can Be Told
4.5 x 6"; acrylic, ink, collage, and oil pastel
on drawing paper
abstract
2022

Undercurrents

Saw a piece of art online that sparked me to want to try my hand at creating something in the same vein. That quickly became a non-starter.

Turned my paper over to its unused side and instead moved my pen very unhurriedly and intuitively until I had a relatively simple doodle in place. 

Started rounding corners.

Rounded more corners and emphasized a central design of some density set in a less dense visual field.

Rounded yet more corners, letting one mark lead me to the next, watching to see what would evolve. 

While vernal magnificence is expressing itself abundantly in the great outdoors, it is evidently not doing so quite fast enough for me—my doodling and coloring point to undercurrents of an inner impatience for lilacs to bloom.

Its Sweet Time of Readiness
4.5 x 6"; ink, acrylics, and oil pastel on drawing paper
abstract floral
2022

Tracking Patterns in Geometry

I had the opportunity in high school to take honors-level math classes. I think I was closer to the B- cutoff for eligibility than to the straight A's end of the spectrum, but I enjoyed the logical reasoning and quantitative calculation, liked my teachers, had terrific classmates, and loved doing homework over the phone with best friend Ann. 

Truth to tell, in addition to writing two-column proofs for such suppositions that if AX and BY bisect each other, then triangle AMB is congruent with triangle XMY, Ann and I kept a running multi-column chart on the inside covers of our respective math books in which we made daily entries of what color button-down Oxford shirt each boy in the class was wearing. Was there a pattern? Did they call each other the night before to coordinate?

Not sure what theorem we were aiming to prove!

With an affectionate nod to my glory days in math classes, I opted today to forego the characteristic freeform looping scribble of neuroart in favor of straight-edge lines that offered up geometric shapes. So many corners to round!

We Are Not in Control
4.5 x 6; ink, watercolors, acrylic, and oil pastel
on drawing paper
abstract
2022

Collaboration

Elizabeth Gilbert has this to say:

The only way an idea can be made manifest in our world is through collaboration with a human partner. It is only through a human's efforts that an idea can be escorted out of the ether and into the realm of the actual. Therefore, ideas spend eternity swirling around us, searching for available and willing human partners.

The teeniest little snippet of a stenciling demo posted by Jacqui Beck on Instagram swirled around me, searching. I was available, willing, off to experiment.

experimenting

Giddy

I continue flitting and whirling and skittering from one exploration to another. I am besotted with creating bare bones and then poking around to see where I might take the shapes and lines and connections that have emerged in front of me.

Bare bones.

Bare bones plus watercolor paints.

Made Giddy by the Brilliant Cacophonous Sunshine 4.5 x 6"; ink, watercolors, oil pastel, and acrylic on drawing paper abstract landscape 2022

Noodled by Doodling

I'm eager to research neurographica more fully and put into words what I learn, but right now I'm way too busy creating neurographica to research neurographica. I confess I am thoroughly noodled by doodling at the moment, totally hooked by the calming effects of rounding corners and the intriguing challenges of working within the given parameters of the form—no room in my brain for anything else.

In my first foray into this art form, I used markers for the color element. In today's exploration, colored pencils.

I Wander for the Sake of Wandering
4.5 x 6"; ink and colored pencil on drawing paper
abstract
2022