Illuminations

 

I have been drawing and painting since before I could walk.

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When I draw, I usually work "blind", or mostly blind. This is, I generally look at my subject, but not at the drawing that I am working on. After using this technique for many years, I have found that by "cutting out" one of the sight lines, the drawings are actually a truer record of the process of how mind, through the eyes, follows form. Is is an uninterpreted line from subject, to eye, to mind, to hand, to pen, to paper (which is otherwise broken every time an artist looks down at the drawing). MY subjects are often musicians and dancers, or other people who are moving about, so the drawings must be completed rapidly. Like Zen ink brush paintings, I almost always use black ink, and am thus able to work spontaneously, completing the drawings in just a few minutes. There is no erasing or mistakes, because I do not allow the left brain to judge (or even see...) what I am doing. 

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When I paint, I either work from one of these sumi-e, or I begin with blank canvas in my studio. I start with random, intuitive gestures until I begin to see "forms" in the paint. Once the painting shows me its subject, I begin the long process of harmonizing the colors. I do not work in series as most artists do, rather, I strive to make each painting an individual gem that relates to the others more through its sense of color than through any particular theme which is over time, and act almost as a pictographic language. In the same way that elements in Japanese kanji can be shifted around and added together to form completely different words, the arrangement of the motifs in the paintings "tell stories" to those who have looked at them long enough. 

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I am a colorist whose main aim in my work is to create harmony and balance. Through color, I hope to bring more light into people's lives, and illuminate their walls with a different way of seeing. 

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-Bill Drugan 

Instagram: druganfineart

Phone Number: (727)396-3702 

Email: druganfineart@icloud.com