Meditation literature uses the monkey as the metaphor for the active mind. It swings from branch to branch grasping whatever is next. While I might have enjoyed drawing a portrait of a monkey, I wanted to draw a monkey swinging to echo the metaphor.
Next time I choose a drawing, it would be fun to anticipate what problems I will have to solve. That might make me less tentative as I am drawing.
One of the problems I had to solve here was how to represent the blurry background leaves. By accident, I discovered that holding the pen directly in my mouth a darker, thicker mark while putting the pen in the holder and drawing with it, I believe a lighter, thinner mark. I drew the foreground leaves with the pen in my mouth and the background leaves with the pen in the holder. It sort of worked.
I made watercolor pencil background of blue and green areas first and brushed them with water. This blended more than I expected, so I added more color after adding ink. This was the first time I used color after inking and it worked well.
I would like to spend more time drawing because I enjoy it so much. We’ll see if new staffing patterns help in that regard once they are started in three weeks.
Photo: Sean Crane