I have no idea what is going on here. All I can say about this week's doodle is that it appears to have a dual personality.
I like the strange sampler style carpets which are being pulled along by team of medallions. Whee! It's a doodle wagon trail! No? Move along people, there is nothing to read here. Apparently, I have just gone barking mad.
A cheery looking doodle for you this week. I like all the movement.
Because it is Spring, it could easily be leaves and flowers, but I don't think that is what it is. It reminds me of the first time you look at a drop of water under a microscope, and see that it is teeming with life.
It is a moment of revelation, of wonder, of amazement, and of magic. I wish there were more moments like that in my life, don't you?
It's ba-ack! Although, I am glad that I finally cleaned out my bookmarks last week. But we all know that is just so I can collect more.
This doodle cracks me up. The top portion has what looks like a flower and leaves. My subconscious is thinking it must be spring!
Yeah, the bulbs are up, trees are blooming, stuff is leafing out, but it has been cold, grey and way too rainy for me to trust the other signs.
I don't usually make long carpet doodles, but this one is 8 x 43 inches. I like all the medallions, especially the bottom pair. I also like the leaf shapes in the middle. The upper pair have the same design in them, which is unusual.
I like it that this doodle keeps on going and going...
Sliding into home just ahead of the ball with this one. Baseball imagery? Yep. It is spring.
More big medallions for you this week, with a few smaller ones scattered around for the heck of it. This is a bold group, lots of high contrast. The big medallions are 7.5 to 8.5 inches across, and this group is about 17 x 22 inches all together.
I went on a studio visit to meet Ellen Currans, the well known Oregon potter, this week. A wonderful lady, and an amazing artist, and she makes a killer coffee cake.
She has a great place, and it is chock full of things. I mean: Things. There were bits of wallpaper, parts from machines, old lino blocks, cards, toys, anything with a pattern or texture on it. This article gives a good description of how she uses this stuff in her work.
I could have stayed forever just poking through her stuff.
You can see Ellen's lovely, and very affordable, pottery at the OPA Ceramics Showcase April 29th- May1st, at the Oregon Convention Center.
Image stolen from the Ceramic Arts Daily website.
I would usually call this a group of medallions, but I think that this bunch has some that are large enough and involved enough that I am comfortable calling them mandalas.
The largest medallions in this group are about 8 inches across. This entire group is about 12 x 50 inches. One of the things about this format is that you really can't tell the size and scale of the doodle. I should be better about posting the size of these doodles.
On the otherhand, reducing the image size makes them look neater than they actually are. You can't make out the individual pen stokes I make as I blacken in large areas. I am not certain that is an advantage, as I like to see the hand of the artist in their work. Don't you?
This week's doodle is another long comet tail of medallions. I can endlessly make concentric circle doodles like these.
I don't really know if this is true or not, but they say that the first shape that chldren make, when they stop random scribbling, and start drawing is the circle.
Ok, so I had to look it up. I found this chart, but not much else. Betty Edwards, The Drawing From the Right Side of the Brain lady, apparently believes this as well.
You do find lots of drawings by children. I love this particular phase, called the tadpole stage, when children make pictures that are symbolic rather than representational. Children all over the world make this style of drawing. This one was made by William Robinson at 4 1/2.
Here is this week's doodle, just barely sneaking in under the wire.
I often think that groups of medallions look like they are moving upwards, this group actually has a bottom line. This is what I imagine I would see if I was looking really closely at water just beginning to boil. Are bubbles like snowflakes, each one different than the next? I hope so.
Yep. It is true, this week's doodle is the 200th doodle that I have posted to this blog. No one is more suprised about it than I am. Yey me! and all that rubbish.
Last week I made two resolutions, and I said that I would report back. I promise you will not have to sit through my to do list as a regular feature here. It would be way too boring.
I did do pretty well this week. I have been down in my studio working every day. I have been looking at my website, but I haven't quite decided what I am going to do about it.
So, back to doodles. What do you think of these? I like it that they overlap and touch. It gives the group a more organic feel than usual. If you stare at them for a minute, it looks almost like they are moving.
I can envision these scattered in water, jostled by a current, floating like lilly pads.
` Pods. Leaves. It has been a while since I have made a doodle with those elements. That automatically makes this a Doodle of the Week. I like this one. I like the different shapes together with the medallions. It is a very abstract look at a garden.
I usually go through a leaf kick in the early fall when they are all changing colors. Now, they are a sort of brown mush, not individuals anymore.
Leaves are probably on my mind because of the Leaf Fee. It is a long tale, so I won't bore you with it. Let's just say that certain people are really offended by it, and that I find it amusing.
Now that everything has dried out and been reconnected, we are back up and running. No major damage. Very lucky.
Here are about two weeks of medallions, and a large carpet doodle to make up for lost time.
'Lost time' is an interesting phrase, so is the idea of finding time, or making time. When you lose time, where does it go? Can you find the same exact time you lost? How exactly do they make time? Is there a factory somewhere? I find it an altogether silly concept.
There is something fun in scrolling thru a long set of medallions. They seem like something scattered, like snow, or rice at a wedding.
I like this carpet. There are some interesting wave and medallion combinations. It has been quite awhile since I squared off the medallions instead of floating them within the carpet itself. This carpet has a unified feel to it, the dark and lights are well balanced, neither one is predominate.
I had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I hope yours was just as good as mine!