THE VEGETABLES OF SHADOW
1999: two studies by Chris Wayan in automatic imagery; ink & acrylic wash, 18x24".
Fellow dream-artist Jenny Badger Sultan taught me this old surrealist exercise. Here's her formula: get some odd veggies--limp ones are fine, but ketchup (despite Ronald Reagan) should not be treated as a vegetable unless you're SERIOUSLY into goth. Close your eyes, dump the veggies on a big piece of paper a few times, till you get an intriguing composition. Now draw their silhouettes. Then... don't draw THEM, draw EVERYTHING ELSE. What do those strange-shaped spaces turn into? What do they say?
Here was my first try, playing mostly with texture.
The exercise tranced me out. I sank into the textures (click on image to see close-up) but afterward I realized... I'd been censoring/suppressing faces and figures and images that wanted to creep in.
So I tried a second one. No censoring. Let the creatures come. And they did!
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