Category: Sketchbook

Spider Heaven

Posted in art for kids, Bridge Meadows, heaven, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Sketchbook, spider1 Comment

I took my sketchbook out to the Bridge Meadows courtyard on Saturday and was soon surround by a small group of kids.  We had a spontaneous drawing party.  I’d brought my twistable Crayola colored pencils and we were all drawing flowers. 

A little speck of red started skittering across my paper.  At first I thought it was a pencil crumb blowing in the wind, but then I realized it was a spider mite.  I pointed it out to the kids and they were all fascinated, except one little girl, who panicked and squished it with the side of  her pencil.  It was so tiny, it didn’t even leave a mark.

A seven year old boy got very upset.  “That spider was just going along, minding his own business and having a good time and she just killed it.  She killed it!  He didn’t deserve it.”

He went on and on — I thought he was going to cry.  He also seemed to want to torment the girl.  I told him that some people are afraid of bugs.  The girl thought the spider was dangerous and some are.  And there’s no use in making her feel worse about it.  Everything’s fine and the spider is in spider heaven.

His eyes got wide and he wailed, “I wish I was in spider heaven!”

“What?”

“I want to live in spider heaven!”

I told him that we didn’t want him to live in spider heaven, we wanted him here in the neighborhood with us and that we’d all be very sad if he left. 

“Oh,” he said and went back to coloring.  Soon he was singing a little song.  And the girl was fine, too.

Brief theology discussions with my new young friends pop up quite often.  The kids are all somewhat worried that some disaster is going to befall them.  Most of them have had fractured lives and they’ve witnessed violence.  Plus they get a lot of mixed messages from film and video games. 

The thing I love most about helping them with art and stories is that after an acknowledgement of fear, we can imagine anything we want.  We can play with color.  He drew a picture of his cousin and him watering flowers in big pots.  “We really did that.  We grew flowers”  He ran off with the picture to give to his mom.

I drew spider heaven.

Ink and watercolor pencil

Lost Sketchbook

Posted in http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, magnolia, memory, Memphis, Rozelle Project Sketchbook, Sketchbook2 Comments

I illustrated this sketchbook/journal in January and February to enter in the Rozelle Artists Guild’s  Project Sketchbook in Memphis, Tennessee.  I spent the first 46 years of my life there before moving to Portland in 2006.  The sketchbooks are hand-stitched by the Guild.  Mine was lost in the mail and has yet to be found, so I wasn’t a part of the show after all.  They are having an Encore Viewing of the books tonight, May 18th, so I thought I’d do an encore post of my digital copies of it. (Note added 5/19: I just got a comment from my friend and artist Mary Jo Karimnia that the sketchbook has been found and is on display.  Yay!  It kind of fits my turtle personality — I’m slow, but I get there.)

Cover
Inside cover
Page 3
Add caption

Rivers of procrastination
Jungle of Memory
Valentine crayons & ink
Back inside cover — I repeated my name because they had me listed as Jay Corcoran
The display itself is kind of cool.  They had the sketchbooks on the wall so you can browse through them.  Mine, however, you can only see here on line.  The original is composting quietly in some post office.  I understand a few others were lost and they’re reorganzing their entry system.  The ones that made it now have a special survival magic about them!
 The Encore show is here:
Come out to our old warehouse at 822 Rozelle St. for an encore viewing of this year’s Project Sketchbook submissions! Over 100 sketchbooks will be on display 6-9p tonight & 2-5p Saturday. Donors can pick up their perks, sweet ass Project Sketchbook shirts, buttons & catalogs will be for sale, and if you so desire, you can cut your sketchbook down and take it with you.

Doodling Around

Posted in doodles, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Sketchbook, storytellingLeave a comment

It’s been a busy month and I’ve gotten a chance to do a lot less doodling, drawing and writing than I wanted.  However, I’m getting really excited about A Festival of Stories presented by The Portland Storyteller’s Guild, June 1 & 2.  We had a rehearsal last week-end and the stories range from hilarious to poignant and back again. 

Here are a few recent doodles I’ve managed in my latest sketchbook:

The Most Prolific Flower

I drew this in pencil after dreaming of strange plants all  night
These chilis were painted on a plate at a meeting I attended

pink and blue

Tree of color blobs

Wind almost blew this tree off the page
Where lines can lead

Child of the Sky

Posted in Art, drawing, foster children, SketchbookTagged , , , 2 Comments

I did some stream of consciousness drawing this morning — otherwise known as doodling — with my Graphitint pencils.  These are graphite pencils tinted with color that get more vibrant when you add water.  I drew and washed a few colors and this face came alive.

Lately I’ve seen a lot of really beautiful children, the children here in my community, and I’ve learned a lot about their histories — moved from home to home, witnessed violence and murders, and felt the chill of losing loved ones.  Yet here watching them play in their new families, it seems a bit like they dropped out of the sky, full of hope and full of shadows.  Everyone hopes we can give them a real childhood and that Bridge Meadows will provide them with the stability that will help them thrive.  Already we see them growing and learning and playing.

I decided I needed to do series of these sky children and I got some great feedback from fellow artists at my Oregon Womens Caucus for Art meeting today. I will create composite drawings, not actual portraits, and try to capture the spirit I see in children.   The muted color of these pencils seems perfect for the project, especially since it’s often grey and misty in Portland.  The deep often cloudy life of children is rich soulful territory and I remember it well from my own childhood.

This first one is in my watercolor sketchbook.  Tomorrow I’ll start on a bigger, denser piece.  I love it when a stream of thought leads to an entire project.