Once I got myself off the computer yesterday was super productive. After a bunch of hemming and hawing I finally got myself working- and had six little concept drawings by dinnertime. I think they might all be usable!

It was such a relief to find myself working things out in a drawing the same way I do with my other work. It's nice to know that my brain solves pictorial problems like what happens at the base of trees while I'm in the middle of a drawing just like deciding something like a big black shape should go right there in a formal drawing- it's the same kind of intuition. Has it really been this long since I've had to draw this way? I'll post about what I actually figured out and reveal the drawings once I feel like they're ready to go.

I'm pretty happy that I figured out how to have trees that move, a magical forest floor, and (hopefully) use shadow puppets!

Here's my sketchbook pages I was using yesterday. My to-do list page- small but functional. The ribbons at the top are these ridiculous ribbons to put on your conference badges they were giving away at NAEA. I learned the next week that Ann Haney and I had both taken dozens.

I started thinking about Roxy Paine's sculptures yesterday. Especially his metal trees and tables of faux mushrooms. I've always liked his work- super sophisticated artificial nature- but just as beautiful. I'm now thinking the set should be like Roxy Paine meets Mary Blair. More on that later.

Here's my palettes from Tuesday, all printed out so I can see them in my studio and a test page of marker colors all labeled. I like the way these pages look together. The labeled markers were shockingly helpful- I don't know them by heart and the color that's printed on them is hardly accurate.