a santorini still life & on drawing everyday

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santorini > travel diaries

i did this drawing of santorini wild plants that i collected, the day before. i sat outside in the morning sun, on the patio, and drew it, with a cup of coffee, as patiently as i could - (still lifes require you to still your own life).

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i try to do a new drawing or animation everyday - and it feels like working a different part of my brain. if i don’t do it for one day, i can feel that part gathering dust and stiffness - like not doing yoga, or stretching, or drinking water. you can feel the internal dehydration of your seeing eye. drawing everyday is fulfilling some need for seeing and translating beauty - for filtering the world through my own lens, moving it through me (i am the vessel), onto the page (even if it’s digital).

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that day, it was bright and windy, and pieces of the plants were being blown away. i think i started regretting my choice after half an hour in, when i was feeling too lazy and impatient to do all the details - but in the end, it felt like solving a puzzle - for beauty. how could i capture the light illuminating the leaves - without needing to paint every light and shadow, meticulously, like i was in an oil painting 101 class, in college?

i still remember those days, years ago, when i used to buy peppers and onions from the mortan williams grocery across from my university - head to the art studio at 12am, and paint my homework assignment until 2 or 3 in the morning, in the dark, with the sound of sirens outside (this was new york city).

i don’t miss those times. making art out of winter in santorini is better. but the act of seeing - is the same.

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