Writers miscellany + one Frida
Author: Christopher Conway
My Brooklyn Art Library Sketchbooks have gone live
I am happy to see my two contributions to the Brooklyn Art Library Sketchbook Project go live.
You can click on the link the first one here: “Faces of the West.” I began this sketchbook before COVID and had a very difficult time finishing it. But I did, finally. My goal was to capture something quickly and dramatically about iconic frontier characters. I was pretty intentional about having my sketches be sketches, and not elaborate drawings with a finished feel.
You can link to the second one here: “Just another Covid sketchbook.” I think this one speaks for itself. I had a lot of ideas when I made this sketchbook, as you can see.
Claude McKay poster (detail)
This is a detail from a 2’7” x 1’11” poster of the poet Claude McKay (1889-1948). In this year of Covid, I’ve thought a lot about McKay’s poem “After the Winter,” which ends like this: “And we will seek the quiet hill/Where towers the cotton tree,/ And leaps the laughing crystal rill,/ And works the droning bee./And we will build a cottage there/Beside an open glade,/With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,/And ferns that never fade.” This is my first time working in poster format, once again with water soluble graphite activated by both brush and spray bottle.
The rest of my posted pictures here.
Nicolás Guillén and Julia de Burgos Diary Banner, 18″ x 48″
What’s a diary banner? I keep an illustrated journal but recently I have been experimenting with 18″ x 36″ or 48″ banners that are folded horizontally and vertically and then folded into page-like squares. Illustrations in these diary “banners” can then cut across multiple pages/diary entries.
This semester I was lucky enough to teach the poetry of Nicolás Guillén (Cuba) and Julia de Burgos (Puerto Rico). I was inspired to create a week-long diary banner measuring 18″ x 48″ with two quick portraits of them in pencil and water soluble graphite. Below are some snaps from the banner, with diary entries blurred out.
The rest of my posted pictures here.
Views of diary banner w/ Statue of Liberty theme
The rest of my posted pictures here.
Two Covid Sketchbook Pages, for “The Sketchbook Project” (Brooklyn Art Library)
A few months ago I submitted two sketchbooks to the Brooklyn Art Library “Sketchbook Project.” At some point they will be digitized and available for viewing on their website. These two pages are from the sketchbook titled “Just Another Covid Sketchbook.” These two pages seek to express the difficulty of representing the emotions provoked by Covid and the American politics around it. The sketchbook is angry and bitter, mostly, and these pages capture the challenge of articulating something about our situation. I made this with watercolor pencil and water soluble graphite and then used a spray bottle with water to activate it all.
The rest of my posted pictures here.
Details From a Diary “Banner”: The Sleep of American Reason Produces Monsters
I keep an illustrated journal but recently I have been experimenting with 18″ x 36″ or 48″ banners that are folded horizontally and vertically and then folded into page-like squares. Illustrations in these diary “banners” can then cut across multiple pages/diary entries. The detail above features a figure from Goya’s “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters.” The banner recreates elements from that aquatint, in water soluble graphite and watercolor pencil. The images below are other parts of the banner, with my handwritten text blocked out.
The rest of my posted pictures here.
Frederick Douglass (charcoal, 14 x 17)
María Candelaria (1943)
Two page spread from my journal, depicting the titular character of the Palme d’Or-winning Mexican film María Candelaria, directed by Emilio Fernández.
Two Jimmy Hendrix Ink Postcards
Christopher Conway 