Midnight Drawings

The other day I looked through some of the old sketchbooks. I don’t look at them often, and when I do, it is always a mix of emotions. Sometimes I feel : Boy, I progressed since then! And sometimes : I had something then that I don’t have now.  But mostly it is nice to look back through these visual diaries and see the moments encapsulated in a cat’s gesture, or the sketches of my left hand, whatever I had in front of me that I decided to draw at that time. Often I draw at night, when Michael is asleep in another room, I have music or some comforting movie I can listen to while I draw, the cats gradually settle around me, and my mind lets go and I can meander through that space I love the most – not quite reality, not quite consciousness, not quite dreaming. Draw from life then suddenly other things come into my head. That is how I plan for the future images and projects. That’s how the whole Venetian series materialized, for example, or the Dreammanual#2. Characters appear in front of me, once or repeatedly, I draw them, turn them around, they start breathing…  sometimes they live in my sketchbook, never becoming a finished work,  sometimes I know immediately – this one’s a monotype, this one’s a painting. This one will become a series.  They may grow to be progressively weird (for example, why flying naked boys???? The answer is – I just liked twisting their bodies in the air. Will they become something more? I still don’t know). 

I love looking at my Midnight Drawings. Even if they are not finished, maybe not entirely successful, but they are a Door. A possible Opening.  Here are a couple of them, just rough sketches, the meanderings of the midnight mind. Some became a finished work, some haven’t yet.