Sixth Chakra - Third Eye

The third eye chakra is located between the eyes, all chakras are half in and half out of the body. The color is indigo although for those people on the spiritual path the color is violet. In the Earth's chakra system we are now in the deep indigo of the universe.
I decided to put the planetary system in the drawing , so you will be able to see the earth and the moon and various other planets. I was quite pleased with the way the skull and the eyes are still visible through the planet earth.

Fifth Chakra- Throat

The fifth chakra is sky blue, it is the communication center of the body. In the Earths chakra system it is literally the sky, hence the color. Now we are in the upper triangle of chakras. Interestingly the shape of the chakra is a mobieus, a figure eight, which mirrors the thyroid gland.
Initially I had a lot of difficulty with this drawing, I decided to include the lungs, as well as the larynx, as without the breath there is no voice. I liked the idea of using the silver trumpets to literally get the voice out. I ended up feeling very pleased with how everything came together.

Fourth Chakra- Heart

The color of this chakra is green. In the earth's system of chakras it is the crust where all the green trees grow. As part of working on my spiritual development, I have had the seed of love planted in my heart, several times ,apparently as I seem to snuff it out. I am hoping to grow this seed into a towering tree of love. These are some of the things that this drawing are about.  I felt  I needed to put in a reference to the arms. albeit skeleton arms. The arms are the way the body expresses love, holding, hugging, lovingly touching. When I first moved to the US and was in RISD at Graduate school, I started doing small bronzes. I used the image of a spoon woman, the body of a woman hollowed out like a spoon with no arms or legs. For me I realized this represented how stressful that time in my life was , I had nothing to give, no love to express, no arms. At least now I have skeleton arms.

Third Chakra- Power Center

The color of this center is yellow, the area it encompasses is the solar plexus. When I was working on the large drawing, I realized the connection with the belly button, placenta and the connection to the baby. What after all is more powerful than creating another human being. I found that all the colors of the other chakras came into this drawing  and really that is so appropriate as chakras  all work together. To utilize power as a human being they must all work in tandem hopefully with the mediation of the heart. This is my working sketch deciding what to do next with the drawing.

Second Chakra sketch

This is a drawing from my sketch book of the second chakra in my complete series. I am going to post one a week for the next few weeks and by then I hope I will have some good photos of the finished large drawings..  Its interesting to me what I chose to keep from the original ink drawing. Initially I liked the image so much it was hard to continue to  work on it. As I was dealing with the second chakra, sexuality, I wanted to represent both  female and male sexual organs. I was rather pleased with myself when I decided to have the female representation as the drawing, and use over painting to imply the phallus, leaving the orange under painted color, as it also is the color of this chakra.​

Sketchbooks

I use my sketch books in my studio all the time, in fact I usually have at least 2 or 3 in use of different sizes.

The recent series I just finished "Chakra Drawings", I used them a lot, often its to clarify what to do next.

I usually won't plan out a drawing with a sketch first, rather I will draw in my sketchbook when the large drawing has gotten out of hand and needs clarifying.

Here is an example , it is the root chakra.

Finished my series of seven Chakra Drawings

I am feeling pretty jazzed, that I have indeed completed what seemed like a monumental series of drawings. I have learned a lot as I went through each Chakra. The one I finished today was the sixth Chakra, the third eye. I decided to use an eye as a small universe with the earth and moon as parts of the eye. At some point I will get some good photos and post them to the web site. This photo is a part of the sixth Chakra drawing showing the eye.

Breathing Space in a drawing

Two of my favorite painters are Giotto born in 1266 and Fra Angelico born in 1395. They painted right before the rules of perspective really took over. I also love the era of the Middle Ages , one of my favorite museums in New York is the Cloisters, its full of work from this age.

One of the reasons I love this work is the flatness of the images, the feeling that anything is possible. What does it matter if the people are larger than the houses, its not about realism . Its about whatever is important taking center stage.

I really do not use perspective very much, however I use the device of creating portholes within a drawing. In some ways it is a trick, using perspective by not using it-- I create a distance, space implied by my framing device and it lets a drawing breathe, so its not all about surface. Here are some examples from recent work. I have just shown that part of the drawing.

Seventh Chakra Drawing

I have been working on the seven chakra drawings for a while now. I was actually trying to do them in order , the first chakra first, somehow I ended up working on the seventh chakra. I think this was because I did not like what I had initially put down on paper, so I felt less precious about pursuing this drawing

As you may know the seventh chakra is the crown , the color is violet.

I wanted to use two pieces of paper to represent the corporeal and the invisible/spiritual . I decided to put them one on top of the other unlike the more traditional diptych, which I seem to be obsessed with.

I got interested in the idea of the pineal gland in the brain maybe being the seat of the "God Particle". The drawing also started off with an octopus and got covered over with the brain.

I have two photos , one is the finished drawing and the other a drawing from my sketch book working out what to do

Using different mediums

I wanted to show a drawing that I used as an image for a tile piece that is now outside our front door.

The original drawing was used as a design for the tile piece. The drawing shown from my sketch book was to decide what the color scheme should be.

What is lost in the translation of this piece is all the subtlety that is possible in paint and ink and collage, that is not possible in glaze on tile.