ink drawing

being repelling moving apart

three brown ink wash faces with black ink outlines transfer printed words overlay
brown ink wash square with black outline face and word "Being"
closeup of middle ink wash square face with "repelling" transfer printed on top
right hand ink wash square face with "moving apart" transfer printed over

Posting another mini-art experiment that turned out better than I expected – doing some ink washes and drawings before overlaying the transfer print. There is a part of me that feels I should also post some failed experiments – because that is the unvarnished truth: many don’t turn out. These days, because of all the transfer printing I’m doing, the transfer fails completely or pulls off the under-layers or dries really weird.

I think about the highly edited nature of social media and the illusion it gives of perfection – but then the other side of my brain is just so happy when something works that it says “No, but show that one! Blargh on the ones in the recycle bin!” So, just know that the truth is that experiments fail as often as they work (and if we shift to science, please know that 90% or more of experiments in the lab fail) and next week I’ll pluck up some courage to post some failures too!

Excerpt Tuesday – Harlem – Langston Hughes

 

HarlemHughes

Today’s excerpt is from Langston Hughes’ eternal classic, “Harlem.” If you are like me, you *may* have mistakenly searched (more than once, I admit) for this poem under the title “Dream Deferred,” so iconic has the first line become in representing the civil rights movement and inequality. As recently as Aug 19th of this year, an editorialist in the New York Times used “Dream Deferred” in the title of his op-ed piece on the rioting in Ferguson, Mo. Read the whole poem here. Drawing (ink on paper) and composition by me.

Old Poem Saturday – Haiku by Buson

Igo_haiku

Another haiku for Old Poem Saturday – this one is by one of the three Haiku Masters – Taniguchi Buson (1716-1783) and was translated by Robert Haas. Drawing (ink on paper) and composition by me. Have a wonderful weekend!