Have you ever been to Italy? Or as some of us here in the South have been known to pronounce it, “It’ly”.
I haven’t.
My dear wife has been invited by some friends (these are friends of mine as well) to join them on a trip there in November. I will be sending her off with specific photographic assignments so that I may create some sketches upon her return.
Some day I’ll go there myself I suppose. Who knows? If I do, it will have to be with a group so that my wife can stay with them while I venture off and sit for hours sketching.
Until then, I will have to sketch from reference photos, taking little pieces of them and creating sketches of my own as I’ve done here.
You see, I like sketching architecture and scenes with interesting buildings and groupings of buildings in them. Unfortunately, where I live, there are no poppy fields or buildings that are centuries old. Thus I’m left to work from photos of such places.
My environment is Southern American Suburbia and its architecture changes in the blink of an eye it seems. Not only that, it’s all built for a temporary stay of say 50 years on this earth at most. The Omni, a sports arena built here in Atlanta, where Elvis last performed in Atlanta, lasted about 30 years and was demolished. Atlanta Fulton County Stadium, where Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record, lasted about 30 years and was demolished as well. Both demolished to build new sports arenas. Go figure!
Add to that the inherent “fake-ness” of the designs and building methods and you have something that makes for a “why bother” syndrome for an artist.
I’ll have to overcome that. I’ve considered simply sketching it, Suburbia that is, in all its glorious boredom and fakery, and making that a theme. I may yet do so. But for now I’m just not seeing Suburbia’s intrinsic value for the subject of a sketch, painting, or drawing.
So, here is some “It’ly” for you instead. More It’ly to come.
2 Comments
You know I relate to this one, Don. I kept wondering why I kept having this inclination to draw churches when i’m not that religious. It’s because, I realize, so few buildings around town were created with aesthetics and permanence in mind. But I think we’ve had that discussion. Anyway, excellent words and sketch.
Thanks for the comments Karen.
I was driving around today running errands and started trying to see Suburbia in a more sketch-worthy light. I think I’ll begin to have a more appealing viewpoint of it the more I do that…and eventually sketch ideas will come to mind.
I need to sketch more in the field and that is the only way it’s going to happen
Post a Comment