ayespider studio

About the drawings

In 2009 I had gotten tired of being an artist who didn’t do art. That October I started the practice of making a drawing each day.

I approach the blank paper with no preconceived notions. My worktable has materials out and ready; I choose media and colors intuitively, without leaving room for my critical, rational, logical mind to interfere.

This spider spins a web each day, turning the images and experiences of the moment into marks on paper. Some mythical spiders spin tales; my images arise without words, but  feel like songs or stories. I don’t know what the drawings are ‘about’, they emerge as a mix of familiar and strange, much like my dreams. They may be illustrations for stories not yet written, or for which I don’t know the words.

Sometimes people describe a drawing with excellent words. With permission, I add some of them to the blog post. I’m so grateful to have people look and respond! It brings me out of the isolation of studio work and reminds me of my connection to friends and family.

2012-10 worktable

 

21 thoughts on “About the drawings”

  1. You go! – they are beautiful and I am so proud have one! I will send some encouragement soon, much love from Buffalo!

    Reply

  2. Kate, I just thought I’d let you know that i’m putting a link to your blog on my blog. Hope you don’t mind. Your work is so amazing. What can I say that you can’t draw? Nothin’.

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  5. I’ve enjoyed your drawings. you offer a nice sense of simplicity and spontaneity in the pictures as well as skill. I guess the picture a day is a discipline that keeps the drawings fresh and not over-worked.

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    1. Thanks, part of this project has been about not “letting the perfect be the enemy of the good”–that is, not necessarily coming up with something great every day, but maintaining the practice and trusting that really, I never run out of things to look at that I find interesting, so it’s not really possible to run out of things to draw (even if I don’t know exactly what it is I’m drawing!)

      Reply

    1. Thanks! I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how the blogging community encourages each other. It really does feed the creative process to know that we’re not working in isolation, and to see what other people are up to!

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  7. Hi Kate, I hope it’s all right, I have linked to your blog, as I find it inspiring the way you go about drawing without preconceived ideas of how it will turn out, and also that you are making a habit of drawing daily. Besides that, your artwork is graceful and beautiful and lovely to look at. 🙂 I feel inspired to get off the computer and back to the drawing board! ~WilderSoul

    Reply

    1. Hi WilderSoul! thanks for liking my blog. I find that, though I really started the daily drawing practice for my own purposes, getting encouragement and feedback from my blog has kept me going longer than I expected when I first started.
      I like your idea and your work; I’ve found coloring books to be very therapeutic in the past when I was really busy and stressed out. It was like a beautiful little vacation to spend some time coloring. You have some great material for people to work with!

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    1. Thank you! Making a commitment to productivity gave me a lot of that freedom. If I know I have to get something on the paper no matter what, I’m sometimes surprised by what ends up falling out

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      1. I hope you continue with that process. A commitment to productivity, good way to put it.

    1. Thank you. The daily drawing practice has been a grand adventure, and the blog has let me find so many other people finding ways of keeping creative playspace in their lives

      Reply
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Kate Greenough's daily drawings