I flip through pages of art books of my favorite artists in search of ideas.  Carolyn Lanchner’s Joan Miró was on my desk and I turned the pages until I got to the following pieces: The Bird with a Calm Look, Its Wings in Flames; The Bird Boom-Boom Makes His Appeal to the Head Onion Peel and The Bird with Plumage Spread Flies Toward the Silvery Tree.  The names alone were worth the effort.

These paintings inspired me to use a thick outline.  In my composition below, I used the line to describe one of the gestures I saw quite frequently with my brother Mike* where he would put his hand alongside his face.

 

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*Mike is my older brother. He is autistic, low functioning and nonverbal. Mike, and my attempts to understand him, are the basis of my artistic endeavors.