Snowmen

Sometimes you have a fully-formed idea for a project and it's just a matter of putting that idea to paper or canvas until it matches up with what you see in your head. Other times you start with a blank canvas (both literally and figuratively) and you let things play out spontaneously and reactively - you make a mark, you react to it with another mark. Add, subtract, and delete until you have something that works. And sometimes you start out with one idea and you end up with something altogether different.

This group of drawings were done in 1994 shortly before we moved from Philadelphia to Savannah. The plan was to do a series of halo drawings in ink on standard 8-1/2 x 11" graph paper, drawing on one side, then coating the drawn side with shellac to make the paper semi-transparent, and finally repeating the halo forms in ink on the reverse side. Well, I got the first two steps done - halos drawn and paper shellaced - and started working on the reverse side. Although instead of halos I found myself drawing snowmen. Goofy, bouncy, strangely-threatening snowmen. Snowmen juggling and chasing after their own limbs. I'll admit that for some reason these drawings still freak me out a little.

Anyway, here's a sample. I think I did about 30 drawings total with these being some of the more successful ones:












Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians -- Balloon Man