1 post tagged “sketching”

I'm working on two drawings currently that are taking quite a long time. 

The first is of sackcloth which sounds pretty easy but has gotten a bit

controversial.  Shelley asked me to do a  picture of a person in a rural setting with a black goat grazing nearby.  Apparently sackcloth was not some burlap thing in the OT.  It was what poor people wore which was itchy fabric woven from black goats' hair.  To put that on was uncomfortable plus humbling to a person and an expression of their sorrow/repentance.  So this is what I drew.

 

Shelley wrote back clarifying that she hadn't been clear in her instructions, that the person was not be be downcast but going about some daily task.  So I stood him up and gave him a bucket and had him scratching from the itchy fabric on his shoulder (well near it).

 

Shelley's team looked at it and said there needed to be more goats.  So I Googled black goats in various stances to give it a natural but a kind of cute look at the same time.  All the goats I added were the actual photos of goats done in a sketch style to give me the basic lines of the goats.

Some of the team were bothered by the bucket.  What's he doing?  Watering the goats?   Would he water goats?  It looks like he's having a heart attack.  I hoped that all the cute little goats in the next picture would make them forget about the bucket.  Plus, now he's scratching his arm.

 

"They don't look like goats, those two in the front. And WHAT is he doing with that bucket???"  It makes me laugh remembering it now.  So I emailed the two pictures of the questionable goats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Guess we really are city people and don't know what goats look like."

I went on to the other drawing which is a whole other story in itself and forgot about the little 'ol goatherder until I got a mysterious email from Shelley, "Don't work further on the sackcloth picture.  I'll explain later."

Umm, I thought it was done so I had no further plans to work on it.  But, ok, I won't.

Shelley called to say she was heading to Oaxaca for a conference on, among other things, translating John ( I think) and that she wanted to come by and bring her external drive (another new thing to learn about...I love it!) to get my finished drawings and give me some things as well.

She came by.  I learned about how much can be stored on an external hard drive (bazillions of stuff), she downloaded a folder of things she had for me, gave me two huge bars of her favorite chocolate (great boss, huh?), and told me about the continuing controversay over the sackcloth picture.

It seems that Guillermo had finally come in to the office.  He took one look at the picture and said, "What's with all the dogs?  And WHAT is he doing with that bucket???"  

Shelley has been educating me about how visual the deaf are.  She explained that they can get so distracted by such a thing as this that they forget all about the original intent of the picture.  They are specific thinkers and visual people. Things have to make sense, not just be thrown in for artistic effect.   She said that they can go to some event together and later one of her team will ask about the lady in the second row wearing the red dress with the dangling earrings that walked like (and they'll give a description or act it out).  And she replies to their question, "There was a lady in the second row?"

So, the goats have to get ear jobs and what Guillermo really wants is one picture, instead of three that shows the whole process in one picture.  Guillermo sketched the idea he had. 

 

 We laughed and laughed and Shelley said I should color it and send it back to him as a joke.  I was afraid he would be offended so I'll hold off on that...until I get to know him better.'

I personally think Guillermo should make it into the office more often.  His sketch is great (I spend a lot of time trying to get my students to come up with ideas and sketch them out just as he had done).

His idea, once I got used to it, was pure genius. (I'm fascinated by her teammates' ability to come up with very specific visual ideas.)  It helped that I had a few days to step away from what I thought was the perfect fullfullment of their request.  I got over the sketch pad shock of having to include so much in one picture.  Then I found the perfect photo of an Israeli man shearing a sheep using hand shears and everything fell into place in my mind.  I really like the outcome. 

 

What's next, Guillermo?