World Tree with Dragon : Progression

World Tree with Dragon

(image of figure, wearing deer skull with horns (responsibility, family, heritage)  reaching 'through' the life and moon symbol to touch and create light shining on the opposite side of the world tree, while kneeling on the roots of the tree where the Dragon sleeps (mortality, the Earth, 'Universe turns' symbol clutched by dragon, also signifies the march of Time).  Bird giving knowledge (leaves to head).  Rabbit looking forward (symbol of regeneration and generations)

progression of an automatic drawing

 

pastel underdrawing 'scribble' to music

  

adding two colors of paint

deciding where the figures are

 

embellishing with gold and blue paints 

 defining more features

filling in blank areas

next step would be to go over with a fine brush and black or dark brown, or to go over with a permanent India ink pen

 

 final stage

January Journals 14

Simba Learns a Lesson - available here

The automatic drawing style is something not a lot of artists do.  It involves putting pen to paper and scratching out a few rough lines, without any idea of what will come from them.  Then, the artist will sit back for a moment until the faces or bodies in the picture become apparent - and trace out the shapes between the lines to make a whole picture.

The drawing above is done in the automatic drawing style.  The parts that showed through in the original few lines were the mouths of the lions, the beak of the bird on the right, the curve of the rock and the wings of the bird above.

Each of these automatic drawings is truly one of a kind.

Twenty minute memory drawing - trying to remember what that scene looks like by the red grass hill near the Rolls Royce house on the way to McKenzie.. every time I pass it I wish to get a photo but the perspective I see can only be captured from a place where there is nowhere to park or stand.

January Journals #12

a quick little sketch of a painting I saw in a dream..  it turned out cute enough to warrant more work.
but not tonight.. very tired

Took Esme to the Star Wars movie, and now it not even quite 8 pm and I am ready for bed
They are taking out one of the last of the nerve exposed teeth tomorrow
and I hope my cabinet has arrived

Automatic poetry


Hope in the Thicket

For all our yesterdays and all our tomorrows
we call you here before the roses
to dream of what could be a
and to see the path before you
not as a stumbling between the thorns
but as a gathering toward the light
that is revealed at the end of the thicket
for it is only a few more dark steps
here in the undergrowth
before we emerge again

january journals 4 sketchbook

Aladdin

automatic drawing sketch

Picked up a lot of tile, worked on a blanket, talked to customers and did a lot of writing in the morning... time to sleep!

bits

little bits of poetry flowing through my head today caught them and didn't let them get away as they usually do.

this morning as the sun began to come in and I was making calls :

I am keeping time so slowly now
it roars at my ears
like waves in the tides of lunar shores
 that pearl, reflective gem hiding
pale against the blue of morning
far away, far above
ricocheting separate, yet bound
around this same sun by which I keep my hours



and while driving

Sleep winds me bout
like a dragon, drinking holes in my blood
I dare not fear for I'll fall into them
and drown

automatic poetry

Between the ages of 9 and 14 I lived at times in the old house of my stepfather, far from town, with very little electricity and the heat from the barrel stove.  We didn't live there all the time, but there were cold days and summer days and pumping water by hand and searing our mittens on the stove while being yelled at that they would burn.  I remember those times, and tried to put some of it into words here.. started out as automatic writing, and then suddenly, I was going there, as if an adult, alone.. even though the house no longer exists.  It is there only in my memories.

((retracted for possible submission))

automatic writing poetry

The little writing group has had several 'automatic' writing prompts. I sat down tonight and tried this off a thought that has been bouncing in my head since sunrise.

Chipping Sparrows

(c) 2019 Marie Lamb

Dozens of little brown birds,

striped heads, black eyebrows

and white chins.

In the dim but increasing light,

they have their own camouflage,

they are almost indistinguishable

from the leaves and rocks strewn in the drive,

until they move,

bustle, dart and peck.

Then they are a spectacle.

My grandfather used to call them chipping sparrows.

They are always busy, chipping away at things.

Out my window I see them

in the snow that fell last night.

They leave a multitude of little arrow shaped footprints. 

 Hopping about, always watchful.

They are aware of the seed and wary of the cat.

Artwork: Automatic drawings

Phoenix

These drawings start with a few ink dashes put down on paper to the rhythym of a song. Then I slowly fill in the areas that look like something to me, until there is a full image and no dashes left over (hopefully). This is a style I have been working on for well over ten years. Usually animals, people and plants show up, but also some symbols that have come to have meaning for me.

We are currently gathering and posting these drawings at Pen Strokes etsy shop.


Rabbit Dancer Woman

Fish Dreams

I've always had 'fish dreams' - where the fish are dying, or the water is running out etc... and I can't do anything about it. They always upset me, and in college I had a good friend finally analyze them (she later got a PhD in psychology). She suggested the fish were my hopes for the future - and that the dreams were a sign I was feeling a loss of control and inability to protect those hopes from outside forces. Eriu hit that nail on the head, in my opinion.

I don't get the fish dreams as much anymore, but I still look hard at them when they do appear. I'll always remember a beautiful fish dream, the first where they weren't in danger, and didn't die - and that was after I had made my decision to come here with Mark. Tanks covering an entire room, full of beautiful goldfish, and he was standing there talking to my stepfather. Neither of them knew each other yet, and that dream made a very powerful image. Someday, I'd like to put that image into a painting.

Last night I dreamt Mark and I were moving fish from one tank to another - but the second tank had carnivorous fish in it, and they wouldn't be safe there. We were talking about setting up a third tank (we have been, in real life, as well - it's on the porch), but it wasn't set up yet and we already had four fish that really did need to come out of the first tank. I ended up putting them in a small jar while we kept talking about what would be a better place for them. Again though, they didn't die - they were just in a holding area, waiting to see what we would do with them.


'Expansion of the Universe' (birth of a child)
artwork Oct 21, 2007 11 pm
I hadn't done one of my random-line drawings in a while now, and last night seemed like the time. Some of you might find the above drawing a little explicit - but hopefully not, as the symbols are pretty obscure and hard to distinguish from one another in general. To me it's explicit - but in a good way. It talks about our baby being born soon, and about the growth, life and responsibility coming from that event.