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My Hands
By joseexist in Musings On Muses
February 16, 2010

My hands seem to be telling me how old my body is more than any of my other parts. I’m doing my own hand-drawn graphics and artwork for a new album cover and have to take considerable time for the muscles to recuperate after a long session of painstaking attention to detail. Pre-stretching my fingers, wrists, neck, shoulders, and forearms helps a little. Back in high school I was drawing pretty much every day so my hands were in shape. It’s been way too long since I drew anything so I fully deserve the pain I’m experiencing.

I could draw upon the small treasure trove of old artwork, but it is so fractured and incomplete that I can only regard it with a tinge of melancholy. I’ve used a few older pieces for album artwork though and I intend to do so in the future again.

I have given myself the task of creating a detailed rendering of a centerpiece that must set in front of a photographed or rendered cloud filled sky. Stone, glass, and iron must look as realistic as my hand can achieve. Lighting has to be considered as well but due to the position of the centerpiece it is not too paramount. As I go along in my endeavor little brainstorms erupt from the ether between my ears. I’ll be combining media such as photos and acetate, (maybe) with felt-pens, gel-ink, and permanent markers of some type (another maybe). The image in my mind readily evolves as details fall into place or evaporate at will. I know what I want it to evoke. The hard part is getting it to do that in reality and not just in my imagination.

When I can’t hold the tools in hand I think back on all the artwork I gave away. Many images that I wish I had kept are lost to me, maybe for all time. There are no masterpieces but there are images burned into my mind of things I should have kept. If any of you out there have any original work from me, I ask that you allow me to photograph each piece for my own little gallery, or take the picture yourself and send it to me. My hands feel better now. I have work to do. It’s painful fun though.