These photos for awhile will just be taken from my drawing board, at angles, might even show parts of my studio etc. They are not meant to be photographic works of my art. It's just art in development. The pencil is very light in some stages with very light pencil and if I were to change the exposure etc so that you could see it all the better, it would sort of defeat the purpose of the photo. You will begin to see how the drawing changes and gets darker and more "developed" by pencil rather than photography.
I have spent many, many more hours on the lily drawing. I have no idea if I will be able to get this done for the show. It is taking far longer than I had thought it was going to. I knew it was a big under taking, but still I under estimated it.
I have spent so many more hours just on the back ground, that I estimate that background alone for just the first layer has been some 30 to 36 hours already and it's not done. It's not that large a drawing. I know that I would look at this drawing and think that I could do it in far less time. Just not so. But I have at least gotten the first layer done and that is a big thing.
My wrist, elbow and shoulder are all sore even though I know and have been good at using them all in the right ways. Don't just use your wrist of course and for the most part try and use the whole of your arm from the shoulder down. Still, after so many hours no matter what you do, it darn well hurts. I'm not quite sure why I want to do this, but my voice seems to reveal me. After drawing for hours in the morning, when I speak on the phone to someone they insist that they can tell right away that I have been in the room doing art work of some kind. I sound happy and calm. They tell me right away. I guess it's the same as being in love. It does something chemically to you. I know that is what happens to me when I am in love. All I would need was the sound of my lover's voice and my whole body and manor would change. It was like a fix. So it is with the process of art. Usually. It can also be very frustrating. When things don't work out, it's very, very frustrating. I think perhaps that is why I needed this project right now. I needed something I knew I could do and feel really good, get that fix. Yes, that's why I'm doing this right now. I need that fix.
In this photo I have worked on the snails and brought them up more. Without the background true black, I'm still going to have a hard time getting the value's right. I hate to think about starting on the back ground as yet. I want to put it off for a while just for the mental aspect of it. I know I shall and just get some more pencil laid down with out loosing true white nor too little very pearly gray white that I want to keep.
Taking photos of this project has not got me thinking or rethinking if I have gotten the negative composition correct. I may want to crop this in the end and then I shall loose all the white of the edges, my careful black edges and the edges of the paper. More thinking before pencil to the paper may have been needed yet still. More sketches, always, always. Maybe I'm just doubting myself as happens all the way through the projects for me. There is always the "ugly stage" too which I've heard all artist talk about.
Perhaps I've already hit that stage so early. Since I've worked on it so many hours I might have already hit that stage. Should it be the ugly stage, then there's nothing to do but work through it and keep head down. This I'm surely going to do as it's way too soon to change anything.
Tomorrow is my first day of chemo. Oh man. I have not slept for days. I don't think that I'm so stressed that I can not sleep that but that seems to be it. Last night was the worst, so I'm thinking tonight will be next to nothing. I just don't know. Now my sister has gotten me worried about the healing of my lumpectomy no less. We went shopping together today and shared the same room to dress. I told her how it had turned into a hard and lumpy mass and and showed her and let her feel it. She freaked.
"That's not right at all, Val. Not at all!" Her eyes raised and mouth open. She froze in her tracks.
"How do you know?" I really wanted to know if she knew or just thought she knew.
"I know. I know that's not right, Val. You have to get that checked out right now. Right away. That's not right." Again all alarmed and staring at me.
"How do you know though? How do you know? Do you actually know. Do you know someone that you actually touched or know that?" Knowing that she does know women with this condition I knew she just might have felt a lumpectomy healing and I too was becoming alarmed.
"No, but I know these things, Val. I know this isn't right. I know. You have to get this checked out right away."
Great.
So I sat down in the shop while she was purchasing and called the nurse and left a message telling her that I had a question about how I was healing and now I have to wait to speak to someone.
Just another thing to worry about tonight. Isn't it great. I thanked her for that too.
After tomorrow I will never be the same. I will have started chemo and be a cancer patient. I will have to wait five years to find out if I am cancer free if all goes well. It will be a year and a half of chemo and radiation. First time ever in my life on New Year that I knew what I would be doing for the next year. It was a very, very strange and ominous feeling.
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