art recipe :: making of new wings

this is elijah.

it’s hard to see, but his finger is turning into a caterpillar.  and of course, he’s eating it.

i bought a new drawing desk recently.  it’s set up in the living room facing the front yard.

i usually stay up and draw after elijah goes to bed.  i do some housework first before i get down to it.  i usually draw from 10 to 2 am-ish.

night is very quiet.  i try not to look out the window because i might see a ghost or a someone standing right at the window.  i can’t make an eye contact with them.

i used to draw non-stop without sleep otherwise i would lose interest in the drawing.  but i can’t do that anymore now that i have a baby.  elijah wakes up at 6 am most days, sometimes 5 am.  he’s instantly superawake and ready to go wild.  so i need to be ready for fun in the morning.

after one year of training, i am now capable of drawing one area per day, finishing step by step over several days without losing interest in my own work.

i sometimes go to the basement to draw.  i turn on a ‘curb your enthusiasm’ dvd and draw on the low coffee table, sitting on the floor.  i find myself laughing so hard even though i’ve already watched all the episodes a million times. i love larry david.  ‘can’t go on, must go on…’

until this point, i was doing my best to follow the patterns of real butterflies.  eventually i got bored, so i made up my own butterfly patterns as i finished the drawing.

here it is: “new wings”.