When you cut into the present, the future leaks out.
A novel challenge to your drawing experience
In the course of events, I find that things sometimes present themselves to me that interrupt the flow of my natural processes. I might see a scrap of an image on the sidewalk, and for some reason pick it up. It could be part of a page ripped out of a tabloid that was left on a table in a teahouse. Overlapping images can reveal something new an unexpected. William Burroughs once said of his collage approach that when you cut into the present, the future leaks out.
The Little Zebra with The Big Kick was a piece of litter from a fireworks stand that I found. I glued it into my sketchbook and then drew out what I thought made perfect sense – a screaming rat of course!
Embracing the unexpected
From this collage approach I found a technique that always pulls me out of my patterned approach to creating a composition. If I added a scrap of an image from somewhere to an existing drawing I’m starting, I have to switch gears and figure out how to integrate it into the page. This can lead to new and novel images, and free me to choose another direction altogether. It doesn’t always work, but I’ve found it is well worth the effort in pursuit of the new and novel.
Crabgirl, below, was the result of glueing the piece of photographic portrait into a page and then deciding what the rest of the image must be.
Disrupting an image
I can start with a random piece of image and fill in the missing parts, like doing a police rendering of a suspect. Or I can add elements of collage to something already being developed, causing me to figure out how to bring them together in a way that hopefully integrates them into a new synthesis. That’s my explanation and I am sticking with it! hahaha
Even for more abstract work, I find that adding elements foreign to the initial drawing often brings a renewed energy, and I get to enjoy making something that takes me in new and unexpected directions. Always a fun journey.
SketchCrazed!
