Monday 11 June 2012

THE EYES HAVE IT

This is just to prove that I did do something on the 'eyes' project for Lisa's E-Course, even if it was not much in the way of drawing/painting.




I arrived in the hospital the day before the op in the late morning.  No bed available, but there was a hard chair in the corridor for me to sit on while they tipped someone else out of a bed and readied it to put me in.


So, apart from a break for a 'cuppa' and yet another blood test, I sat and waited on the chair.  Unfortunately it was the afternoon for the fire alarm to be tested - and tested it was, all afternoon!


So, it was me, a hard chair, my sketchbook, a few Inktense pencils and a water-brush ........ something to take my mind off things while I waited.  



It wasn't very convenient or conducive for drawing and painting, so I decided I would just write and write about eyes - almost stream of consciousness writing, with the odd scribbled sketch.  I thought of the way we like to see people's eyes when we talk to them, and how tough men and gangsters - and even the FBI in movies - always seem to wear dark glasses.




I got quite interested in what I was doing and shut the world out - which was fortunate because I sat there for 5 hours solid just writing and drawing!  I just thought about what eyes mean to us.  For instance, if you start to draw someone quite a distance away in a cafe, even if they have their back to you, do you find as I do that they turn round and look straight at you?




Are you influenced in making a decision about someone by the colour of their eyes?




Then I thought more about how unsettling it is when we can't see someone's eyes - and what if the eyes are replaced in an image by something completely alien ..... or not even there at all.




My scribbled sketches got worse and worse as the hours went on, as you can see and eventually I just came to a full stop.  At last I was given a bed in a nice small ward with just two other ladies, and so glad to lie down.




Later in the evening I picked up my Kindle to read a little.  Having written and drawn about masks, it seemed so co-incidental that the very next page was about a body hanging in a shed with a mask on.  Cheerful reading!


After the op the next day I had no 'go' for anything, and am just now feeling that I might be able to start sketching.  I try to make myself do something else each day - and this blog post is today's challenge. Very tired now - Goodnight.





6 comments:

  1. I've always noticed this thing of people turning around when I'm looking at them. Even though there is nothing to tell them I'm looking at them. So spooky! Love that picture of the man with taps for eyes.

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  2. awesome post! Can't imagine 5 hrs in a hall on a chair. I worked in an ER for 8 yrs. You just keep going & stay the positive you that you are!
    cheers to healing and health!
    dana

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  3. it's uncanny the way people turn and look at you when you're looking at them. what is that? even if you're flying down the highway at top speed, and you look out your side window, the person in the other speeding car looks back. weird.
    I love this post and all the places your sketchbook took you during your long long wait.

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  4. Hope u are feeling a bit better. Fancy leaving you on a hard chair for all that time. Your stream of conscious produced some amazing inspiration though. It really got me thinking deeply too and exploring the ideas around seeing without looking. Fascinating stuff. Top marks!

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  5. Hope u are feeling a bit better. Fancy leaving you on a hard chair for all that time. Your stream of conscious produced some amazing inspiration though. It really got me thinking deeply too and exploring the ideas around seeing without looking. Fascinating stuff. Top marks!

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  6. Wow no wonder you were exhausted!!
    All that writing and drawing drained you dry!! Well done though, also an excellent almost meditative creative style!!

    Hugs Giggles

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