Early Drawings
In kindergarten adults told me that my finger painting showed that I was a good artist. I had no idea what they were talking about. In second grade I decided that it was time to get serious about learning to draw. As I practiced drawing I missed learning about painting over a drawing.
I imagined corners of Middle Earth that were slightly off the edges of the maps. My figures were so weak that the only solution I could find for the problem was to make people insignificant elements within a landscape. For no good reason I used a crow quill pen to make this piece. It meant that every drop of ink in the drawing was pulled from an inkwell into the well of the pen. A single error with the crow quill pen would result in a splotch of spilled ink on the drawing. The primary challenge was the zillions of dots of ink in the clouds and the risk that any applied drop might splat. It forced me into a crabbed short line, something different from normal drawing. I could not risk a loose swirl. The drawing took about a year. I never again made a drawing with a crow quill pen. I was a junior in high school. 1970.
This drawing by another artist was the source of the drawing above. It is how the process works.
After high school I stopped drawing. I was not going to earn a living from drawing. About ten years later I decided to give it another try. I could still draw but still could find no way to earn a living with the skill.
A junior in high school, I hit the road to Oregon.
