Rough Cuts
A movie should be there in rough cut.
Paul Hirsch
The sketches and underpainting for an artwork, the grid and breakpoints for a website, the starter for a loaf of sourdough, and so on. Anything worth making seems to need a solid foundation.
Here's a pair of boots I inked, drew, then painted last Friday:
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
I'm pretty fond of them and felt good making them. The composition, shadows and highlights, cools and warms: they all came true about halfway through the sketching process.
You can't polish a turd.
There seems to be point though where the need for strong foundation becomes paralysing. Take this newsletter for example: I've been slowing its pace because I feel the need for a theme to arise for each issue. That theme needs to have resonance. Then there needs to be enough instances of it to make it worthwhile writing about. And so on.
I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time... The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it.
George R.R. Martin
Your job during—or just after—the first draft is to decide what something or somethings [your book] is about. Your job in the second draft...is to make that something even more clear.
Stephen King (a classic gardener-style author)
I reckon it's more about the medium than the author. These emails should be a garden. The impetuous for a painting should be a garden. The execution of a painting (like a loaf of bread) should be an architectural project; a house.
Wrote
Shovelling shit from a sitting position.
Snapped
The novelty is fading but the submissions to Museum of COVID keep coming:
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Read
On Writing by Stephen King (★★★★). I've since thought about, written about, and quoted this book too many times to count. I'm now on my sixth book of his for the year (The Stand) and can't be stopped.
Ways of Seeing by John Berger (★★★). It neither lived up to its hype nor its TV precedent. The book tries to democratise and demystify art yet reads like a police chief giving a press statement. The one part I resonated with was essay seven on advertising.
Listened to
Bedouine. Under the Night and The Hum.
My Sweet Lord by George Harrison rediscovered via Hurray For The Riff Raff.
Pondered
The key to good description begins with clear seeing and ends with clear writing.
Stephen King