Your Internet Provider giveth and your Internet Provider taketh away. Your call is important to us…your approximate waiting time is fifteen minutes…due to high volume of calls…you understand, don’t you. No, AT&T, I don’t understand, and I’ve been trying to get a consistent answer from your people for three hours. Insult to injury, I have to talk on the phone. Who talks on the phone anymore? People make appointments by email—hello, that would be the internet—to talk on the phone. The phone… so 20th century. Like a Bogey flick or smoking or not moussing your hair, or whatever.
Luckily, I draw. I’ve never been so desperately in need of drawing as this past Internet-deprived week.
I truly think there’s therapy in drawing. The tools are simple: a pencil and paper, both of the ordinary variety, will do.
In case of extreme frustration with the world out there, I recommend color. You may think that’s too complicated or too messy. Not so. Use markers and glossy paper. I recommend Chartpak markers and the PITT artist pen with the B tip. By glossy paper I mean the kind used for color printing, available at office supply stores and 11 x 17 would be the recommended size. The markers are expensive, so buy them when they’re on sale in August, half price in art supply stores. Buy whatever you like and add to your palette over time. Just start. The PITT pens come in a variety of colors, buy black and maybe a brown and whatever else you feel like.
It’s about feeling. That’s why I’m not giving specific advice, nothing “academic” about this. I’m recommending that you doodle in color because color triggers strong emotional associations. You’ll also discover that the materials I recommended make blending possible. Blending itself has feeling overtones. And one more thing: you will not erase. In this medium, you can’t. This means that your doodles will never be “good” or “bad.” They will only transmogrify from one thing to another.
What to doodle? You can invent forms and let them take you away. Or you can pick up a magazine or some piece of ubiquitous junk mail and draw what you find there.
And exhale!
All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.
artamaze by Katherine Hilden 