I have enrolled again for Experimental Drawing classes at the Midlands Arts Centre.
We start from basics, over two sessions making marks with charcoal, then an eraser, smoothing over the depths and highlights by abrasion and water, building in new layers: finding a picture in the unplanned image. I know this stuff but I never do it. Coming straight after work and despite a grabbed sandwich and beer on the way, I find it hard to unwind and let go. Still, it is great to have the space and time and permission to play with marks. It is like rediscovery.
The headline piece has been digitally manipulated, altering the brightness and contrast a little, but particularly, boosting the red channel. The original is below, actually drawn the other way up. When I can get the original back, I will wash over it in layers of sepia ink and see where this leads.
As I worked, my fleeting ideas included making calligraphic marks like a script, masts and rigging of tall ships and sunight breaking through foliage overhead. Once I turned it upside down, this came immediately to mind:
“I helped her see patterns in the desert, in the wind, in the wildcode. We found treasures. There are ghosts beneath the earth, you can dig them up if you know where to look.”
This is perhaps as close as we come to an explanation of the desert or the nature of wildcode in Hannu Rajaniemi’s novel, The Fractal Prince. In so far as I could tell, beneath the layers of quantum physics, wildcode relates to our core canon of stories which truly come alive when our flesh and digital natures converge.
kestrelart 
exciting and different to your last post – i like it
Thanks
Yes, this is why I have restarted these classes – they challenge me to think differently.
actually the only two pieces I have ever got into public exhibitions have both come from these classes. To be fair, I never get time to submit either.
So much movement…… chaos, tamed…. yes lots of thoughts and suggested “beings” for this.
Thanks
I’ll see how I can develop the original with layers of ink.
It might be fun to print out a few colour copies, mount them on card or mdf & then play with them in acrylic paint. You could scratch back into them, whilst they are still wet and have other copies to play with other colours, textures and tones ! I enjoyed your post – have fun on your course and keep posting the results !
Interesting thought – thanks for the comment, I really value this. I have done something like that before with an experimental piece, but used digital manipulation to develop the image. https://kestrelart.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/treasure-island-violent-death-and-birds-in-motion/
This is so like “automatic drawing” and what energy you captured, here, kestralart!
Cool. It makes me think of a displaying Greater Bird of Paradise, with the body of the bird below and the lighter display feathers in a messy fan all above.
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the headline piece is exciting with its contrast and sandy redness, but I also like the interplay of cool and warm in the original. The story you reference sounds interesting, I’ll have to look it up.
Thanks for the comment. Try “the Quantum Thief” which precedes “the Fractal Prince”. His style is apparently termed “show, don’t tell”. It does come together, but I had to read QT twice. They are brilliant books.