playing with image and ideas

I'm drawing daily in my sketchbook now. This will come and go, I know, but when I'm using the sketchbooks consistently I am freshly reminded how differently I see things when I'm observing directly--I see so much more than when I refer to photographs I've made of the same objects. Maybe it's because I can see it from different viewpoints. I can look closely, can squint my eyes to reduce detail, can feel textures, use the magnifying glass to see intimate details....

I've never had much desire for drawing from memory and so don't practice that form of image making often. For me, visual recording from direct observation is quite challenging. Because my sketches, drawings, or paintings are done to help me learn about the things I find interesting I don't concern myself with making "good art works" -- which most of the images certainly aren't.

These drawings were done yesterday from a maple seed I picked up on the sidewalk outside of the studio. Last night I scanned the drawings into Photoshop and began to play around, using some of the filters with the color sketch. As I did that, I began to see options for weaving from a cropped version of the "helicopter" of the maple. Hmmm, helicopter...