Focus Interruptus
Conditions: Perfect. The weather outside is glorious, studio windows are wide open, Music From Big Pink is on “shuffle”, and current drawing has consumed me. I have been blending violet into a dark indigo. It a very tedious process but I really like the results. I have my head inches from the paper and my eyes are pinpointed to the spot where the blending happens, the pencil point barely touches the 80 lb. paper. This goes on until the shuffled Big Pink ends and Grateful Dead from the Mars Hotel (also shuffled) begins. What a coincidence since the picture I am currently working on is loosely based on this iconic flop-house!
The blending continues. The violet colored pencil gets shorter and shorter because the frequent sharpening is required. The pencil gets too short to hold so I slip it into an extender, which gets to utilize the pencil down to a little nub. I’m getting closer to the end of this pencil with more of an area to blend remaining. It gets that the pencil is now too small to sharpen. Thank you violet pencil for being such a good violet pencil, but now your job here is complete and one of your violet colleagues will have to take over where you left off. Into the drawer to fetch yet another violet pencil. WHAT?! Let me search some more. To no avail. The violet pencil stash is depleted! How could this be? I rarely use violet pencils.
As the Mars Hotel shuffles, the Mars Hotel picture will have to wait. Such perfect conditions to run out to the art store to purchase some violet pencils.
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