Artist Explains the Backstory of a Drawing

• I start with a bad, bad sketch, done on paper I extract from my trash can, something I do to trick myself into thinking I can't go wrong. Shown here, and drawn on the back of an insurance envelope.

• I translate the bad, bad sketch into a merely bad sketch, this time on graph paper, shown below, to keep everything upright. Junk paper, graph paper, help me think.
  
• I get my client's approval on the idea in the bad sketch, and proceed to final art, sometimes with an intermediate sketch or two. (I make sure my client is familiar with my style and my work before I send a sketch as nasty as the second one shown here. No sense scaring off a customer. ;) )
  
• Here's a photo of the kind of pen I use. See the tiny wire on the nib in the picture? This one is about three times THICKER than the wire on the pen used in this drawing. Maintaining my technical pens is a fixed portion of my artistic life, and is my reason for never bothering with manicures, as I usually get ink under my nails. See illustration.
  

In the case of this art, I inked the major outlines with a slightly thicker line. I seldom draw from life, so everything here is made up from an idea in my head, and I use line weight for emphasis more than for resemblance to real life. I can see the air of unreality in this piece, but I excuse it, saying it's unreal in the sense that it's idealized. It's my Platonic ideal of a desktop.

• As I go, I start thinking about what else I'd like if I were using this desk. At this point, I add the tulip pattern on the planter, the house bookend, the apple. I add the cat, and hope the client likes it. Turns out to be moot, since we didn't use this drawing, and the kitty got to stay. I'm still trying to decide what other book titles I should include. It's a little like the thinking that went into the preparation of an Egyptian tomb: just as they included what the dead Pharaoh would need for his afterlife, I include everything my fictional writer would want at their desk.
  
• I correct an accidental M.C. Escher mistake on the window when I notice the frame is parallel to the viewer at the bottom and at right angles to him at the top. A little extra shadow at the base allows me to fix the line. I've learned not to panic at mistakes. In my old graphics office, we used to say, "There's no mistake you can make that we can't fix." (This motto pertained to art. We made no claims about fixing your bad romance or your tendency to binge-watch Law and Order.)
• With the outlines in place and corrections accomplished, it's now smooth sailing. I take that tiny pen and do the shading, listening to anything from podcasts to Patsy Cline to Prokofiev. I'm a very eclectic listener.
• I let the drawing rest, like bread dough, overnight, or for a week or a month, depending on the deadline. When I return to it, I notice places that need emphasis, places where I failed to go dark enough. My revered painting teacher, Frank Liljegren, was famous for touring the room, exhorting students to "Go darker, darker," because he knew if we didn't, nothing in the light would stand out. I notice it's my tendency to hesitate to get the dark tones dark enough. When I studied with Frank, it was in a class largely composed of Bible students, and we all had to be exhorted to go dark enough, as if we had some inner doctrinal imperative to keep everything bright and cheerful. I still fight that. I also fight the fear that I'll darken an area beyond what will work with the rest of the drawing, and everything will be ruined, ruined! In art, as in any occupation, your inner issues and doubts need to be swatted down or they will eat your endeavors.

• When the values are adjusted rightly, every part of the drawing has an elastic connection with every other part. As the artist, it's my job to be the viewer's tour guide, leading the eye around the picture without visual speed bumps or road blocks. If I've done my job as the artist/illustrator, the picture will tell a story, and the viewer's eye will feel at rest.
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Well, that's the process that went into the art at the top of the page.
                                                       
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