The face on my easel
For several days now, this drawing of a girl has lived on my easel.
She will be the main character – the storyteller in my next large quilt. I created her as a loose sketch with pencil and marker on salvaged packing paper from a package I received.
When I’m working on pieces in the series about journey and memory, it helps to give things time. These works are not autobiographical in a literal sense, but I certainly draw from my own emotion and experiences. I want to remember how it felt to be a young girl. I need to remember feeling things going on around me that were beyond my control. That way, I can universalize the character and give her a voice.
When depicting a child, every little line and shape is important. I like the very slight angle of this girl’s head, and the way one shoulder is just slightly above the other. It gives her just a hint of expression, in an otherwise rigid pose.
“Hint” is also what I’m going for in facial expression. I hope to depict as little of the actual facial features as possible. Just enough to establish the face structure. I don’t want to depict a particular little girl. I want it to communicate about girls more broadly.
I’ve worked over time to find a way to depict skin tones and human forms in a way that pleases me, working in layers of fabric. I generally use gessoed muslin as a base layer, and trace my drawing onto the muslin. I will do some pencil and oil pastel drawing on the muslin to create the form. Most of the values will be created loosely as monotypes on sheer fabric, layered over the muslin and collaged. There is a lot of serendipity in this part of the process. The patterns and colors appear randomly on the fabric and I move the pieces around till they end up in the right place.
This is one of the first works I created using this method: Neither Here Nor There
Detail Neither here Nor There
I worked in a similar way in these works: Look Through to the Memory, From the Place Where We Landed and Saying the Magic Words
Detail Look Through to the Memory
Detail From the Place Where We Landed
Detail Saying the Magic Words
I will stay in conversation with this character in the weeks ahead as the work progresses. (I am also intrigued with the environment I am planning to create around her and I’m sure to be writing more about it in future posts. Stay tuned)
If you’d like to see whole images of the work I’ve detailed in this post and learn more about them, you can find them on my website Here:
FROM THE PLACE WHERE WE LANDED
Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi
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