Day 9- A Pathway of Green

“A list of beautiful words:

Fleeting,

Savor,

Fluency,

Languid,

Meraki,

Sanguine,

Chimerical,

Raconteur.”

-The Storyteller

It has been raining very often here. For some reason the rain always makes things look deeper- maybe it’s the droplets connecting everything as it fades farther and farther, the rain getting smaller and smaller and the mist coming in to close your eyes- in any case. I am usually going about the business of making my work look more volumetric instead of flat, so it was strange to think backwards today. In any case, my work is already quite flat, seeing as I draw inspiration off of many old Celtic designs that precede our want for art to showcase visual reality. But I digress. Here is your art, I enjoyed making it so I hope you can enjoy it as well:

A Pathway of Green - image 1 - student project

Day 8- Caliburn

”Arguably, they’re different names for the same sword. However, in versions where they are not the same sword, Caliburn is typically the sword in the stone, while Excalibur is the sword given to Arthur by the Lady of the Lake after the sword in the stone broke in a fight.”

-Kenneth Kasper on Quora

Oh what a lonely sword. I wish to be a smith, and set it free from its stone, but I am a glassmaker and my creations shatter at the moment of war.

I love the trope of the sword in the stone, or the waiting sword, that which can choose great kings and heroes. Swords are important, for the honour and life of a fighter leaned on the blade. Andúril, Caliburn, The Master Sword, the Vorpal sword, Sikanda, Sting, the Tessaiga, we are obsessed with these lengths of steel and iron. They are delicate, and vicious, and kind, and strong. And they are infinitely patient, when they need to be.

A Pathway of Green - image 2 - student project

Day 7- Multiple Monsters

”Oh dear, is that you head? Well your tail is in my nose, and his foot is on my ear. We all bear a bit of discomfort in these trying times.”

- The Buffalo

Alas! I did not post today on the correct day. I completed the assignment, ran to do a Very Important thing, and refused to think about art for the rest of the day. But now I shall share my tiny plethora of masquerading monsters to the masses.

A Pathway of Green - image 3 - student project

Day 6- Fading Dreams

”It is my downfall to wait,
In languid, easy torment-
Resting eyes, resting head, resting arms,
While my heart beats it’s chorus the millionth time.
‘Wake up,’ it says:
‘Wake and become a burning sea.’
Patience is not a virtue, little sparrow,
If it devours your soul in waiting.”

-Thoughts of My Own Head (the Traitor)

I have nothing in my mind to show you today, simply old poems and new paintings.
Ave atque vale

A Pathway of Green - image 4 - student project

Day 5- Metamorphosis is a Pretty Word

“One, two, three, four, I found the skins of snakes and the castoff coats of cicadas. I am the queen of all things turned aside, of dead cloth and faded, broken cocoons!”

- The Queen of Lost Things

I loved this prompt! I still remember in art college, life drawing class, when we were instructed to draw the space around a chair. I had never thought to see the shapes of what isn’t embodied! The clean squares and curved arches of the air are beautiful, tiny spiderwebs in between treetops, the open coffin of the sky speckled and dotted with stars... They are wonderful and amazing to me, and I wish I remembered to draw them more often.

Where I live, there is cicadas. I had not lived with them before, and have learned to enjoy their restless singing. I see their dead skins hanging from trees, from corners of houses and the underside of unused vehicles. They scare me and I love them.

A Pathway of Green - image 5 - student project

Day 4- Claws and Teeth Oh My

”You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two.”

-Hayao Miyazaki

I sort of had a bad evening today and just wanted to draw how I draw, the subjects that I love and the forms and shapes and lines. I chose my red colour today, instead of my muted blue. Red is good sometimes. You need to have a balance, a tiptoe between red and blue, dark and light, fast and slow. A mesmerizing dance of hot and cold, twisting and twirling and uprooting houses and turning the forest to kindling. Yet in the middle, an eye of peace.

A Pathway of Green - image 6 - student project

Day 3- Favourable Winds
“You set yourself above even the golden sun, yet your heart speaks of blackening and disease. What a strange creature, to be so enamoured with something yet so determined to destroy it!”

- Someone Who is Now No Longer

I love drawing slow- as I said before, blind contour is one of my favourite warm ups. Yet I struggle to draw at any pace other than my own- the steady, purposeful strokes of someone who has no idea what she is doing. I like making fast little lines, full of the wandering pathways of leaves and cat eyes and ants. I love long, steady, swooping lines from the breeze that blows past, the wind you can hear roar through the trees long before you have to brace before it’s might. Medium lines, that make up so many things and times and spaces and dogs, always ready to straighten out another one of those writhing, disproportionate beasts I so love to draw. I am everything within my art. So there.

A Pathway of Green - image 7 - student project

Day 2- It’s Not a Cloud, Guys

“How many blood-stained mouths do you have peeking from behind your hair? Two? Five? You would think a monster would go after easier prey than the blackberry bracken.”

- Strange Jackdaw Staring at Me

I have always been good with lines. I love inking, making tiny little marks and prods until the paper finally releases the form which I have entrapped upon it. I love blind contour, and freeform sketching, and following the edges of things with all their little lines and bumps. I did not realize how strange it would be to start with such an... undefined path. A white paper can be anything, the lines are free to roam and be harnessed by my pen. Observational drawing and my eyes trap the form, sending it from my head to my shoulder and down to my hand. Yet this superfluous, ethereal blob of colour spattered on my page... What am I to do with this? I am both trapped and free, ensnared by both eyes and hands. At last, I relinquish my sanity and simply... Draw.

A Pathway of Green - image 8 - student project

Day 1- In Which I Go Nowhere
“Journey, hah! What an interesting turn of events, this yearning for the open and winding roads of change and tribulation. I am quite glad in my little house and wish not to be rained on- additionally, one of my legs is quite irreversibly longer than the other.”

- Little Voice

If there was ever a prompt that gave me trouble... Well. I am not an adventurer. I like reading about other people going on journeys, but I myself have been trying to put down roots for a year now.
I always travelled a lot as a child. We moved at least five times in the span of my life, always unusual places like the tops of mountains or a sleepy tourist town full of empty lake houses and old folks and overgrown bike paths. For now, I am full up in journeys and thinking about journeys and going on journeys. Which is ironic, because my head goes on a little journey every day. It goes into the tiny places in the woods, forests of moss and towering mushrooms. It dawdles on the slopes of imaginary worlds, full of war and time and cities and nations and people, so many little unusual people who love and hate and die and live. My mind slips down many alleyways and sidles up to logs and rocks and bird songs. I am constantly journeying, and constantly looking for a way to stop.

A Pathway of Green - image 9 - student project

Puella VerNimbus

I am but a tiny gremlin with a knife

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