As many of you know, I have been experimenting with different art styles recently and enjoying it. But I started a new pen and ink piece a few days ago and it has has served to remind me what a grip pen and ink has on me. It is a very difficult medium to master. It is unforgiving. It is demanding. It is relentless. But I love it. I love the way the images emerge from the lines as I lay them down. I know, I know, the same can be said about most art media but there is something ... almost magical ... to me about the way pen and ink does it. This new piece is a large, complicated and very difficult portrait. And I can't seem to work on it for very long at a stretch, almost as if prolonged exposure is too difficult to bear. But I can't seem to stay away either. Why?

It has got me to thinking about why do i love this medium. If you will indulge me in a little side story, I have a friend who has a theory on why we are attracted to the people that we are. He believes that we are forever attracted to the type of woman/man that we were first attracted to. For example, his first girlfriend was a bitchy blonde whose first name began with a "sh" sound. Now, since then he has dated women who do not fit this stereotype, but the majority of them do. Another friend of mine seems to be (tragically) attracted to very young, almost ditsy girls. And he cannot seem to get away from it. And I do tend to be attracted to dark exotic women, much like my first girlfriend.

Where I am going with this is that the first drawing I ever remember doing was pen and ink. And, while I have no formal art training beyond High School, I had the same art teacher from the age of 12 to 18. And she specialized in old fashioned pen and ink, much the same way i do (but she had a very different style than what I do now.....) Obviously, I can do other styles, and have. Not only what you have seen here, but i have done many others - including oil painting, ceramics, glass etching, sculpture, sand blasting, and so on. But I love and am always coming back to pen and ink.

Do you think it might be because pen and ink was my first, so to speak. That, like dating, you are drawn to that which is like - reminds you of - your first? I dunno. It's an interesting theory. I don't think that it is set in stone, I think you can change your preferences. After all, my brother's first was a crazy brunette and he married a very sane blonde.

I think pen and ink may be my dark, demanding mistress that I always come back to....

Does anyone know a good 12-step program?

skritch