This is my first artwork in I think 6 months or so. The last sketch I made was in October. I always fear the blank page. The sharpening of the pencil symbolizes the ensuing sketch. Or the fear. The sound of me sharpening the pencil instills fear in me because of the time in which I did not draw. In any case, here I present to you my first sketch in a long time. Along with it, I made a small film of how I drew it (on YouTube) and a kind of philosophical essay or reflection that in some loose way explains the sketch (not that there is any explanation needed!). I also add the process photographs for you to see if you like that. Without further ado, please enjoy the artwork, the video, and the musings.

A Brief Reflection - An Original Pencil and Charcoal Drawing

Pencil and Charcoal on A4 Paper

The Process Film/Video

Reflections: Philosophical Musings

A brief reflection can be a very complex action. Breaking this idea down requires one to think from another framework. That is, one cannot briefly reflect within the same mind-frame as one uses to live one's daily life. Taking the time to ponder things requires one to move beyond the daily, beyond that what one is used to. But this moving away from the familiar is inherently an alienating move. One distances oneself from the security of knowing.

Standing in front of the ordinary and everyday within this new framework, helps one see the strangeness of everyday life. From this new light, life becomes a true horror. But using these terms itself already situates and structures the world. The true horror lies in what cannot be pressed into neat boxes.

Philosophers like Jacques Derrida and Edmund Husserl philosophized themselves into a dead end. Both these philosophers tried to get into this strange place where rigid structures of understanding did not make sense. But language itself is the absolute example of a rigid structure. In other words, how can one write about things which transcends meaning? Or, how can one write about things before meaning is inferred? Derrida wrote under erasure, he literally drew a line through a concept-word to symbolize its peculiarity. Husserl tried to "bracket" the world. All of these ideas fall short because it is already cemented into language.

And this is where a brief reflection comes in. For a brief moment, one can imagine oneself in a world without meaning. One can ponder for a moment the absolute horror of a spoon on a table without them being in any sense recognizable. For this brief moment, what might be a split second, one cannot help but be pulled back into "reality as such". One cannot escape the pull of the familiar, the pull of meaning, the pull of structure.

In my sketch, I drew a face. I had a reference image, but the image and the sketch cannot be compared. There is no correlation or matching of the familiar. In some sense, I alienated myself. I look at the reference image, I look at my sketch. The two do not match up. Yes, there are two ears, eyes, noses, but the similarity is not there. But then I snap back to reality and see my sketch as a unique drawing of what is in my mind. The sketch looks familiar, my mind makes the lines look like a face. But in reality, the lines on the paper are just that: lines on paper.

Process Pictures

Post Scriptum or Something Fancy at the End

This was a fun drawing to make, although I really did stress. I always fear that I might lose my ability to draw because I do not practice. This might function as a practice sketch. Maybe it really isn't good. In any case, the photographs were taken with my Nikon D300 and iPhone. The video on YouTube I took with a Nikon D3200. The musings are like always mine, even though I try to distance myself from them. In the mirror, philosophy is not pretty. I hope you enjoyed the sketch and video and musings. Stay safe and happy drawing.