"Meander" - Class September 13th

This weekend I visited my grandfather at his home in the Monterey area. I don't own a car, and so through a combination of walking, taking the train, and connecting to a shuttle, I finally arrived in downtown Monterey. Needless to say, the trip took nearly twice as long as driving and followed a much less direct route. Once there I spent a foggy, cozy weekend mainly inside of a warm house. On the way back in the shuttle I was in nearly touch-and-go traffic outside the San Juan Bautista area and I snapped a photo of hills scattered with oak trees, which I chose to draw for class this week.

This week's word is "meander," along with a still life painting by Adrian Stokes (and a poem, but it is too much to discuss both here). I am interested in Stokes's idea about carving and painting, which is described in more detail on the Tate website here. Essentially, the idea is that the painter explores form by the "color he attributes to the surface of the canvas, just as the carver reveals the potential life of the stone." I would venture to say that my drawing process similarly follows this process of color application (in my case colored pencil) until the form of the subject emerges. For this drawing I chose a similar color scheme as Stokes (predominately blue, yellow, and peach, among other colors).

Adrian Stokes, Still Life (Last Eleven: No. 7), 1972

"Meander" is therefore a theme that I explored this week both through the process of finding the image that I wanted to draw, and also through the selection and application of color. I hope the drawing also suggests the possibility of a trail that would almost certainly wind through a landscape like this.