Let the Creative Juices Flow

Koi, conte on paper @salain_art

We [artists] shouldn't be so serious all the time. Then it stops being fun. It is good to go back to the good old days where you were sitting in a high school classroom and paying way more attention to what's going on the margins of your notebook than the teacher.

Sorry to my Math and Science teachers who never managed to hold my attention for more than a few fleeting moments between masterpieces on blue lined paper.

I try to remember to bring my sketchbook everywhere I go. And, I don't know if other artists are crazy about not letting anyone make a single mark in their sketchbooks, but I enjoy letting others draw in mine.

As I flip through it later I smile, remembering the time in the bar where the BU Fine Arts alumni of 20+ years drew my portrait. Yesterday we were fervently scribbling alongside a friend trying to recreate Disney characters that we used to draw hundreds of time when we were kids.

Splash Pages, conte, pen, and graphite on paper,  @salain_art @alvarezstephany @ivanmenjivar

When you're drawing just to draw, or doodling to keep your hands busy while having a conversation, its therapeutic. Your hand is free to wander all over the page and just do its thing. It flows out of you as if you turned on the tap of your creative reservoir. The best part is that everyone has one, everyone doodles, and its cool to see what things they like to do when they just let it free.

One day when I'm dead, but famous, and my sketchbooks are displayed under glass panes in art galleries, people are going to think I had some crazy case of multiple personality. I hope they do; I laugh at the thought!

Image above is a the result of me modeling (drawing and explaining my thought process) a gestural portrait of Ivan. Done in about a minute, if I remember correctly. I see the resemblance! If only I could have captured the bemused look on his face, the ??this is art?? look.