Or How I Am Trying to Preserve and Advance Culturally Significant Art Styles With Modern Technology
I had a very long and productive drawing day yesterday. I would have continued to draw well into the wee hours of the morning had it not been for my partner forbidding my iPad to join me in bed. It’s not that the iPad is never allowed in bed, it’s just that my hands were cramping and he knew I would pay physically for any more drawing time than had already happened. It got me thinking about how I use the resources and supplies available to me when I draw or paint depending on my level of pain and fatigue on any given day. I also thought about what this particular folk art form has taught me about my struggle with OCD and perfectionism when it comes to my art.
Allowing for bad days
For many artists, gathering supplies and setting up a space for creating is the first task of their artistic day. With two autoimmune diseases on board along with severe bone and joint degeneration, my first task is to assess my own baseline as to whether or not I will even be able to sit up out of bed for any more than a couple of hours. If I only have two or three hours for being “up”, gathering supplies can cut into that time drastically or even drain more time off due to moving around while collecting supplies. I try to organize and plan ahead, but I am often struck by the artistic muse at odd times. I can do rough sketches in a book but I find that when I am bitten by the “need to create” bug, I will often work until the project is done. GIven that, I look to my iPad and digital drawing for a lot of my off the cuff creative sessions.
I love my dip and fountain pens! I adore handmade papers and textured watercolor papers. I enjoy mindful doodles and long deliberate brush strokes. The problem with most of my chosen art mediums is that they require a bit more setting up the space than just setting out the paints and brushes themselves; glasses of water, towels, and table coverings to name a few extras. I am very lucky to have an understanding and helpful partner who will help gather items for me, even bringing all my supplies outside when we have good weather. But it isn’t fair or realistic to assume he will always be available or able to help when I am struck by inspiration. I really had to reconcile using my iPad to create digital art of an iconic style of Pennsylvania Dutch folk art.
I have been creating my deity hex signs for several years now. When I first started them, it was in a very simple free drawing app called Sketches using a generic stylus or my finger. As I grew better at digital drawing, I wanted to do things that I could not do in that app. Better tools make for better art experiences and I invested in an Apple Pencil and another drawing app called Procreate. That move prompted a bunch of new deity hex signs as well as more, and better, art. It allowed me to correct infinite times without damage to paper or wasted ink or paint. Most importantly, it allowed me to create while in bed on days I could not sit up at a desk or even sit on a couch.
I didn’t mind creating hex signs in a digital medium, but capturing fraktur was going to be a different animal. I did create one of the folk healing charm Heili Heili Hinkeldreck, but the brushes weren’t quite right. I like it well enough, but I felt it could be done better. Most of my creative energy had been going to The Book in the last several months and what energy was left went to wood burning for the Pagan Pride events we attended. Once those were over, my focus shifted and I found myself inspired by a fraktur piece to revisit an old idea I had pushed aside. I worked on that idea a bit and collected a lot of resource material for the next day. In the morning, I showed my partner some of my favorites of the resource material. He pointed out one item that he thought would be particularly appropriate for use during our 12 day Voryull and Yuul meditations. It was a great idea and I immediately jumped into starting that project and spent 9 hours in bed and on the couch creating this piece.
What this piece taught me
I spent time searching for just the right brushes and found ones that got the look I was going for. I then played around with the background and overlays to get the old paper look. I took the original and used it to sketch out the placement of the larger elements in the fraktur. I couldn’t really see the designs around the circles, but I had studied enough fraktur to have a sense of what could be there. This is where I ran head first into the lesson of this project.
When the original fraktur pieces were created, their artists didn’t have erasers, unlimited access to paper, or endless amounts of paint. While there are samples of fraktur that are practice pieces that have one motif repeated over and over, I too do not have endless amounts of paint or paper. Even if I used practice paper, it can affect the flow and feel of the pen nibs and ink often has different hues on various papers. Yet, now, working on my iPad, I had nearly unlimited access to “paper” and I could erase and redraw the same line over and over until it was perfect.
In theory, going after perfect sounds great, right? In reality, perfect doesn’t exist and I have been trying to teach myself this for years. In this particular art form, perfect isn’t even necessary since I was looking to recreate already created designs. On paper, I could draw in pencil and use protractors to space things out and measure every stroke, but on the iPad, that isn’t quite as easy. If I wanted to truly capture the essence of this art form, I had to approach it in the same way that it had been approached when they were first created. I had to try to allow myself the authenticity of making mistakes and leaving them in the project. Even if people measured and sketched out their designs, each design stroke would be slightly different from the others. If I wanted to have a final piece that was digital but still captured the humanity of fraktur, I had to let go of seeking perfection.
Putting it to practice
This was a struggle and I did end up erasing and fixing things here and there when my circles got too wonky or one brush stroke was so big it stood out. When that happened, I tried to stop, take a breath, and remember the spirit in which I was trying to create this piece. I reminded myself that this would take not only practice but patience as well, something we often aren’t too fast to offer ourselves. I told myself that this was my first try at this idea and if it went well, I would be able to create the project that I really wanted to focus on. I thought about the intention of this piece I was working on and how it might be used. Of course, doing all of those things made me want to create more, as it often does. One idea leads to another and I write them down as they come to me. I finished this project and rolled right into another.
One of the reasons I create is to fill a need for visual depictions of Urglaawe deities and lore in 2D or 3D. While it provides much of my inspiration, it also drives my desire to practice the folkart of my ancestors. This allows me to connect with my art on many levels giving it depth and layers of meaning even if it looks simple or plain. I also want to bring my ancestors folkart into the modern era. Hopefully, other artists and enthusiasts will follow and we can create pieces in digital art that are just as interesting, nuanced, and admired while also allowing accessibility. If you have ever looked at a piece of art and said to yourself “I wish I could do that” I challenge you to try it. The art of creating, even if it doesn’t turn out perfect, is powerful and inspirational. Find that magic and empower your artistic side!
Macht’s immer besser!
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