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Fire on the Water - Planning My Piece

Process

Kelly Anne Powers drawing

Fire on the Water call for entries is just 2 weeks away. This week I’m turning the bulk of my attention to working through a few pieces. Why a few? Because working across a couple makes me feel less precious about any given one. Because my brain knows I hope one of them will be good enough for a show, the stress will come in. But hopefully I still have a good week left before the real debilitating panic starts.

It’s always fun to roll out some new stencils and give them a whirl. I worked on larger (12x11) drawing paper and my goal right now is to just familiarize myself with the subject matter. I have a face that feels perfect for this show. She’s looking steadily into the camera. At the end of my practice I wasn’t sure if anything was working but I figured out my title. Game Face. That’s exactly what drew me to her in the first place. She seems ready for something. Waiting. The calm before getting into the water. She’s ready. Mixed Media Artist Kelly Anne Powers The stencils had mixed results. Ironically they all seem too big. I needed to pull out a different shape for smaller transition areas. Also there isn’t a lot of pattern in the piece. A lot of that is because I started with white paper and did very few layers. If I work on top pre-established layers there will be way more back and forth. That said, I’m still not confident that there will be a ton of stencl use at the end of this. I drew in a litle dragon boat at the very end just so there was something officially part of it. So...yeah. Still figuring that out.

The other option is to create a stencil that is more obviously something boat related. Like oars in a line. Or dragon head outlines. That could be kind of fun. Intermixed dragon bodies for the background or the shirt. Originally I was going to but the scallops in the hair but I like the movement of it and the imprecision of the stencil would screw that up.

This study taught me a ton. I know where my lights and darks are. I know which part of the drawing might cause me a little trouble (surprise it’s the nose!) and I know some of my stencil challenges. Hurrah!



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