Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Illustration Friday - burning

I went about the usual way for this week's topic. I lookd up some quotes and I found a nice one by Leonard Cohen:
Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.
I love the quote, but how am I going to go about drawing this? And as I pondered this question, I thought that maybe I should use a literal approach this time ... and I made three smoke paintings and three different types of paper: 



I revisited them with ink and charcoal:


I like the middle one. In the last one, I saw a figure on a chair draped in some kind of cloth, but I could not draw it, so I decide to "see" something else. Then the ink smudged and so now I have a face with moustache. Smoke painting is fun as long as it is done carefully. My first attempt burned, luckily I had a spray bottle handy...