365 Day 184

a little bit of painting and a lot of strange drawings

On and off today I was painting this guy's spots...



















..and going through my relief printmaking class sketch book looking for drawings within drawings and tracing the results for possible future carvings (while I was watching tv). It's funny...even as I was taking the photos just now, I was seeing even more creatures and objects in the same pages that I hadn't seen before. Perhaps this was because I was standing over them, looking down from a different perspective. I think Shaqe was pretty spot on when she said I'd be able to go back and keep finding more and more things in my "automatic"/intuitive drawings.




this sort of looked like a zebra-creature so I filled him in (image is on the far right of the notebook)









this looked like a leaf and a sort of woodland deity so I traced the head and added more of the leaves













some sort of really weird coloring book calf-ish creature?











a wolf/bear combo creature?















a guy and his talking dog creature?















some sort of little (red) riding hood owl-creature?












alpaca-ish guy













my nod to Portlandia's "Put a Bird on It"...LOL












sleeping kitty












the rest of these guys remind me of William Hessian's "Chubby Creatures" -- which I suppose is sort of fitting since William was the one who showed me this "automatic drawing" method












I like these guys but I like William's Chubby Creatures more














I probably wouldn't "see" these creatures if I wasn't aware of his, though













here are two versions of this guy --
this is version 1 -- running












version 2 -- leaping















I would call this one Prancy













this came from the same area, only with a different head






I pulled a lot of variations out of this area

The Wondrous William Hessian

His students call him Mr. Billy. His friends and family back home call him Billy. For work and business relationships he is called William. Friends in states other than Minnesota call him Will. This incredibly creative and energetic artist has as at least as many names as he has projects going at any one minute.

I first became aware of William Hessian through his "Bearded Bunny" series for Art-o-mat. Click here for a sort of intro/update about this series. And here, too.

Then I found his Bearded Bunny Blog. (Do yourself a favor -- subscribe/follow/bookmark this blog. You will not believe all of the imaginative and incredible projects William has created.)

Then I heard about his Miniature Art Hunts.


Then I found his Etsy store and was able to pick up a number of his delightful "Chubby Creatures"



and a few of his small ceramic sculptures.

Briefly, William Hessian is a visual artist, performance artist, writer, illustrator and teacher currently living in Maine. There is just SO much to say about Mr. Billy -- but I am sure that you would have a better time exploring the links and finding even more of his projects for yourself -- kind of like going on one of his art hunts.

I am not sure exactly what we are going to do, but I am thrilled to say that Billy and I will be doing a collaboration! Stay tuned to both of our blogs.