It was too rainy to go fishing, so I did a lot of reading, mainly about lines and how to draw them. Well… I take that back. I’m reading Paul Klee’s notebooks, on which it is difficult to gain a foothold.  Don’t get me wrong, I am fascinated by his approach that gets to the nitty-gritty of creation as relates to pictorial elements. He discusses creative power as follows: “In all likelihood, it is itself a form of matter, although it cannot be perceived with the same senses as the more familiar kinds of matter. Yet is is in these familiar kinds that it must reveal itself. It must function in union with matter.”  (Klee, P., Heinz-Norden, trans. Jürg Spiller, ed.; Notebooks Volume 2 The Nature of Nature London: Lund Humphries. 1973 p. 63)

Alas, Klee doesn’t say how creative power is revealed or, more to the point, he doesn’t say how an artist can connect with his or her creativity. Perhaps this is something that cannot be taught. Perhaps it has to be an Archimedes-ish ‘eureka’ moment at which each individual must arrive in his or her own way.  More reading and practicing ahead for me.

Today’s study

Since I don’t have any fish stories to tell or fish images to draw, today’s experiment is another in a series of fruit still lifes. This will probably be my last image of the dragonfruit I bought a couple of weeks ago. It is fading away. If you’re interested, my other still lifes of this same dragonfruit may be found on these posts:  Single Dragonfruit, Symmetry, Dragonfruit Unchained, Dragonfruitus Resumptus and Aging Dragonfruit.

Not surprisingly, there is less of a range of colors in this representation, although there are a few dashes of red still holding on. The shape of the half that still has seeds is deforming. The cut surface of the seeds is sinking and turning dark in places.

I will try keeping it around as long as I can, but if it attracts flies or grows mold, its got to go.