The night of January
25,
2021, after drawing a chiaroscuro still life study,
Objects Concentrating On Volume & Space, Allen dreamt that he was drifting
inside his drawing. He was infinitesimally unmoored between thick smooth geometric slate tiles of mark-making that stretched to the horizons and floated through a hole to find another level of lines and tones reaching into infinity.
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This dream processed a liminal exploration of the microcosmic elements within Allen's charcoal drawing. Allen suddenly fell through the second hole which jolted him awake!
On his phone, he quickly sketched the tones and shapes that were in his dream.
Later, Allen created drawings of the two levels exactly as they had appeared in his dream. He completed a second chiaroscuro, titled
Yet Another Configuration, and then amalgamated the two chiaroscuro artworks with the drawings of the dream levels into one animation. This process connected his unmoored unconscious to his present learning and digital drawing pedagogy. Allen finds art in the process of learning and this is a conceptual piece about a keystone looking and learning moment.
The above video begins with the second chiaroscuro. The middle part of the video animates Allen's full dream. It concludes with the first chiaroscuro. The sequence is then reversed for disequilibrium to generate alternative strategies for looking. Looping emphasizes how repetition improves learning by increasing the strength of a single memory trace.
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This artwork is a sister to
Still, Life Without You–19.
"Drifting, dreaming
In an azure mood"
Gallery installation explained below:
FLIGHT PATH
(illustrating the path of the video)
LEVEL 1
Tiles below (with check marks) were used for digital charcoal rubbings of the dream levels:

This completes 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
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