Talking while Drawing

Sketching vs watercoloring

Interviewer: Can you explain why you feel comfortable talking while sketching with a pencil but not while painting with watercolor?

Stanley: Yes, it's something I've thought about. Pencil and paint, watercolors, that is, are different media. 

Interviewer: Different strokes for different folks?

Can talk...

Stanley: Not different folks. It’s media-driven. In sketching you can pause and in watercoloring you can’t. With pencil I can
stop and resume without losing the flow. With watercolor, once the paint is on the paper, you can’t correct easily.

Interviewer: So technicalities govern the workflow?

Stanley: There are techniques requiring close attention, like wet-on-wet, dry brush, and layering.

Interviewer: Is there anything in the way the two media make you feel?

Can't talk...

Stanley: Oh yes. Sketching is more casual. With painting it feels more intimate, almost like a dialogue between me and the canvas. So talking is like another person interrupting the conversation.

________

Voice-over

When sketching with a pencil mistakes can be erased easily and you can pick up where you left off. Watercolor painting requires adaptability and embracing imperfections. In other words, knowing when to control and when to let go, to anticipate how the paint will behave while also allowing for serendipitous effects. 

Winding down then starting up again

At project’s end...

Antonio: The article is written. Just the final proofing taking a day or two.

Federico: Not as bad as a film shoot.

Antonio: How so?

Federico: Well, filming might take two or three weeks then you spend two or three months in post-production.

Antonio: Onto the next?

Federico: Not so fast.There’s always a day or two of sinking feelings before you can surface for air and get on with the next big thing.

Reflexive sketch

Antonio: How do you handle it?

Federico: Go by the river early, sketch or paint something. Read a book, call up friends.

Antonio: I go out, have the ortho pull my back straight. Coming back the other day, I rested a bit on a bench, an old delivery man on a Gyro pulls up, jumps off and starts eating his lunch. I smile as I leave. And he smiles back. The warm glow from a stranger helps rekindle enthusiasm.

___________

Voice-over

“I have watched people who have nothing to do with the film business, but who have become part of the circle for a short period of time. They can be truly devastated when the film wraps and people leave.” Jacqueline Bisset

Studio Sketch

Repurposing a tumbledown shed…

.

Miss Kenton: It was an old garage but I had it turned into a studio.

.

Stevens: Looks bright inside.

.

Miss Kenton: Got some old wooden windows from a demolition warehouse.

.

Stevens: And this sketch?

.

Miss Kenton: That’s the first thing I drew when the building was finished.

____________

Voice-over

In days of urban verticality, a studio on an estuary seems a bygone extravagance. But why not use the remains of one’s days to live out the way things used to be.

...