Winter Memory, 6" x 12", oil on panel, 2010
Forest, Fields; 6" x 12", oil on panel, 2010
The work of children's book author Ed Emberley was recently featured in an exhibition at Scion Space in Los Angeles. Six artists responded to his pictures by combining their style with his. Emberley's Drawing Book of Animals was an absolute favorite of mine in third grade. Drawing instruction "how-to" books are usually poo-pooed for hampering a child's creativity, a principle I generally agree with. This was not my experience in the case of Emberley's, however. The book shows children on how to make his fanciful, graphic animals by building on basic shapes. The creatures are just plain cute and I remember giving the my drawing of the porcupine to my teacher. Children go through a phase of enjoying drawing characters as well as repetitively drawing schemas - a subject they draw in a particular way every time (mine were a clown, a fruit bowl, and a cat). Wikepedia defines "schema" as deriving from the Greek word "σχήμα" (skhēma), which means shape, or more generally, plan. The Free Dictionary adds that it refers to "a structural or procedural diagram". Emberley's book fits these definitions.
My landscapes are schematic in that I have a particular viewing experience in mind - a window/stage/framing like a screen. How I work it out isn't planned and can be a bit confusing, a puzzle, a challenge. I'm obsessed with the schema and want to push it in all directions as I repeat. Many painters did/do the same, revisiting a motif, banging it, bending it, pushing on it, trying to get it to give. Sometimes it comes easily, sometimes it resists. Either way it compels. I don't have a teacher anymore so I'll just pass them along to you.
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