Drawing Innards Dreamt with Azure
*artpiece full screen with audio on:
The night of January
25,
2021, after drawing a chiaroscuro still life study, I dreamt that I was drifting
inside my drawing. I was infinitesimally unmoored between thick smooth geometric slate tiles of mark-making that stretched to the horizons. I floated through a hole to find another level of lines and tones reaching into infinity.
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This dream was my processing of a liminal exploration of the microcosmic elements within charcoal drawing. I suddenly fell through the second hole which jolted me awake!
On my phone, I quickly sketched the tones and shapes that were in my dream.
Later, I created drawings of the two levels exactly as they had appeared in my dream. I completed a second chiaroscuro, and then amalgamated the two chiaroscuros and the drawings of the dream levels into one animation. This process connected my unmoored unconscious to my present learning and digital drawing pedagogy. I find art in the process of learning and this is a conceptual piece about a looking and learning moment.
The above video begins with the first chiaroscuro. The middle part of the video animates my full dream. It concludes with the second chiaroscuro. The sequence is then reversed for disorientation. Looping emphasizes how repetition improves learning by increasing the strength of a single memory trace.
The chiaroscuros are my execution of Project
120 in the book
Mendelowitz's Guide To Drawing, 3rd Edition, using digital charcoal. The two dreamscape levels integrate rubbings of tile surfaces taken from a selection of digital photos. Color frames were inspired by the song,
Azure, sung by Ella Fitzgerald on her album
Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Duke Ellington Songbook:
"Drifting, dreaming
In an azure mood"
Gallery installation explained below:
FLIGHT PATH [11x11"]
(illustrating the path of the video)
LEVEL 1 [13x8"]
LEVEL 2 [11x13"]
LEVEL 3 [11x26"]
LEVEL 4 [13x8"]
Tiles below (with checkmarks) were used for digital charcoal rubbings of the dream levels:
My pedagogy of drawing is a practicum of correct observation. I find the truth of a drawing exists between its shadows and lights.
—Allen Gregg Fox Galante
Still, Life Without You–19
Color Bedroom
Drawing Innards Dreamt