Tuesday, July 20, 2010

COLORED PENCILS IN THE HOSPITAL

Last Monday my dear grandson Arlo and his sweetheart Cindy - you don't hear about sweethearts much anymore, but I think it is a very apt discription of how Arlo feels about Cindy, brought me some colored pencils to keep me busy in the hospital.
I was actually feeling rather numb at this point.  How could I have a heart attack when I am healthy and always have been?  Was this the beginning of the end?  Of couse we all have to die sometime but certainly not yet.  You get the drift.  Scared out of my wits.
But the colored pencils called.  I have never worked with them and there they were, and there I was with nothing to do except worry or play.  I opted for play.  First I decided to take some notes.
What were the names of the colors and how did they look when you pressed on them with three diferent pressures.  As you can see the heart attack did not improve my spelling.
I decided putting pressure on the colored pencils didn't feel like fun so I would see how two similar colors could be united using a comfortable pressure.  It is not at all evident but I very rythmically moved my hand as I was stroking the color onto the paper and that created little changes that were very satisfying to me at the time.


Next I decided to find colors that moved nicely into each other in a series.  This is something I have been working on in several media for many years but never before with this set of colored pencils




Now what?  I had no desire to render the inside of my room in colored pencils, although that might have been interesting, it seemed much to daunting, so I decided to simply keep making color progressions which were making me feel calm and content.  I thought putting them inside a shape of some kind would make things more interesting so I opted for a jar shape.












As you can see this is all very delicate and hardly there at all and yet it was extremely pleasurable for me at the time.  What I am wondering is this, if someone like me came around with an 'art cart' in the hospital where people were trying to cope with their feelings of fear and confusion would it be of some benefit?  
Since most people are not artists and may not feel as free to play as I did, perhaps some suggested things to do with the art materials could be part of the 'art cart' experience.  I am asking you out there on my blog list what you think about this idea and if you have any suggestions or are interested in pursuing this idea with me.