For a long time, I’ve been working on how to deal with the weighting, coddling and touchable connect-ability of spaces.  I’m currently working on the opposite.  How do line function?  How does it get it’s forward propulsion and how does it self generate enough visual lift and thrust to begin again.  How does it work with melody?  How is the energy most beautifully built and what does that architecture look like? This is all part of my personal summer project in service of the philosophic and architectural realities I need to understand to best construct the larger year two bigger project.  Related but different.

These are all problem solving sets for me.  I’m looking for the architectural pressure points that can secure the entiety of the lines melodic thrust without weighing it down or anchoring its propulsion with some sort of secondary buttressing.  Below, the main tented lower arch is pressurized by the weight of the vertical oval which compresses it just above it’s grounding connection.  This thrusts the weight up into the left side of the arch while sending the diminished overflow of energy overtop and downward to the right.  The curving inward of the right side of the arc creates a catch for the rest of the energy caddy corner to the original vertical one.  Thus the visual scenario for the stand on the right section far more delicate and singular, in that it acts more like a training wheel rather than if the line had not curved in and  thrust the energy into the grounding.  Had the curve not pulled inward, that small catch space would not absorb much of the energy.  The result would be the right side of the arch would have felt like 10 burly men were thrusting the energy down into the ground.  This essentially would have ended the melody, where as raising these catch spaces and moving them along the line itself keeps the propulsion lively and flowing around endlessly.  Which is what I’m looking for in melody… how to capture the float-ability of a tumbling forward passage and how to deal with the general following of a weighted divoting that necessarily pendulums the swelling thrust back upwards.  I’d like to find a catch space that would mitigate the elongated bottoming weight and pull that a divot fundamentally creates.

The arcs on the upper left are made ’roundingly’ taught by the pull of the pressure point of the vertical oval.  Even as the end of the ribbon is left unfinished, it’s energy has been collected along the way as well, so that it is firmly and visually secure.

Looking forward to rendering these on nicer paper and perhaps as paintings as well over the summer. As for now, I’m tired and heading to bed…

In and of Itself © Britt Conley

Britt : )

Flowers for you Mom 8.5 x 8.5 Graphite on paper

I drew these for my Mom back in May.  She was going through a rough time.  Well she is again and thus I am posting them again.  She deserves all the flowers she can get.  She was rushed to the emergency room today.   After a couple of hours I was finally patched through to her.  She didn’t sound good at all.  As her point person I spent the entire evening speaking with various people about her care from Virgina.  As my mac is still away I wasn’t able to work on the things I normally work on.  It’s been quite the week for my family.

Portrait sketch 7 x 8 Graphite on paper

It’s been a long day today.  I’m tired.  Despite this I wanted to work on another portrait sketch for a new series that will be brought up in paint.  Here is a glance of what is to come.

Simple Design 5.25 x 7.5 Graphite on paper

Sometimes the best designs are the simple ones.

Pencil Meets Paper 8.5 x 9" Graphite on paper

It’s the weekend and a long week it’s been.  I have big plans to just be and I thought I’d start tonight where pencil meets paper.  Only three objectives this weekend, get some serious painting time, do a little reading in the courtyard…  and draw.

Terrace Cards 8.5 x 9 Graphite on paper

After spending the day traipsing around the National Portrait Gallery with fellow artist Sandra Colquitt looking for all the Sargents and Cecilia Beaux works we could find, we headed down the courtyard cafe with tired feet and a cup of tea in mind.  While resting I managed to get a quick frame of two women doing the same.  The woman on the right was struggling to open something, while the woman on the left was stretched out after just taking her glasses off.  With all the 19th century art we had just seen, I decided to re-envision these two with a 19th century twist and have them playing cards out on a terrace.  I see a block style series emerging.  After I finish my comission I will have to get them all up and running.