This blog started with a series of drawings. Simple black line renderings in a regularly shaped notebook I had sitting around, lacking any definite purpose. I still enjoy the time when I can step out of phase and let ink bleed into the fibers of the paper. Watching my hand deploy a few quick marks that spawn simple pseudo-algorithms of design. I find it a very relaxing process, one that is consuming and renders me into another world. A small, tightly knit world of that page, that pen, that moment, those marks, and of course, that me.
As a fun experiment I made an impulse purchase and grabbed the new Evernote Jot Script 2 Stylus to pair with my iPad. I wanted to see what it felt like to draw in a more digital, screen based medium, but with a similar intent. the images here are a collection of some of my initial experiments, quick morning exercises or studio examples for my students. I find the process somewhat disconnected as the ink flows through glass into something I have much lest connection to. I also find it very fluid, oozing shapes from my motions rather than engraving rivers of ink. I am leaning towards the digital pen as much more of a rapid sketching / concept tool, while still preferring the real stuff (pen and paper) for my more creative and meditative drawings.
One major caveat I always encounter with students is the reliance on erasers, especially in the early moments of a design. If you are unclear what should be on the page, how do you know what to delete? I like to draw through 'mistakes' and use them as opportunities, maybe even registrations of a more complex relationship between the paper/screen, pen, eyes, hands, and imagination. So the implementation of an undo feature to my sketching feels very strange, and a little dirty. DO, not unDo, or better still, make things!
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