Drawing the Ordinary

I know I've shown gloves here in the past, but a good idea is still good the second time around. At the same time, perhaps we can answer a question.

For me any drawing is fun, but some times it's ordinary things that are the most fun to draw. Now that we have winter weather, something to work with on dreary days is really welcome. I have a small basket full of well worn gloves that I've collected for just such days, in a variety to give myself a challenge - and really, that's the fun of it!


 The pair left below and the similar pair on dark paper are sets of men's ordinary  leather gloves that have been used and mis-used over the course of a few years. I think the most damage was from getting them soaked while shoveling that slushy stuff we all hate!

The top left,  done with Prismacolor pencil, is a lonely single. I was just about to call it a welder's glove - my father had once been a welder in WWII's Boston Navy Yard - but something said "No!"  Welder's gloves have long, deep cuffs to protect arms and wrists from fiery sparks. This one is heavy and stiff with short fingers and a coarse raw finish - something meant for very rough duty - perhaps to protect hands from particular sharp blows. Do you know what they are? Any Ideas? Leave a comment here or on my Facebook page.


"I choose a subject but the subject chooses me."   Frank Webb

"The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work"   Richard Bach

"Choose a job you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."   Confucius

"I don't know the question, but sex is definitely the answer."   Woody Allen

Leather

One  warmsummer morning  a few years ago, the sound of light traffic by my home was replaced by  the rumble ofmotorcycles.  Group after group of leather-clad cyclists passed by, heading I knew, for the annual Lake George "Americade" rally, a gathering that attracts thousands of hardy Harley-Davidson enthusiasts.  The "hirsute parade" lasted several minutes then  growled away down the street and turned northward.

I'd settled down to enjoy the return of relative quiet when one lone Harley crested the western hill and seemingly, "floated" by.  A bit of rough pavement bounced the bike and  something dropped to the road.  I walked out and  found these black leather gloves. Thinking traffic might do them harm and the rider would soon return. I picked them  up but he'd disappeared, never to return.

They live on here, left and right, one quite simple and the other tightly rendered.   They appear here separate simply because my copier cannot accommodate both together. I drew them side by side, deliberately different just for interest. (I may revisit that decision later) These two have been joined in my studio by several other pair, waiting their tun to be drawn, painted and possibly part of a series. 


BTW, there's no photographic intervention here, the drawings were done directly from the gloves as they lay on my desk.  I enjoyed the time I put in working on the highly finished one, (I DO like to draw!) but these days I'm more attracted to the simpler one.  I love the mark, the evidence of a hand at work. 


In a recent New Yorker article, art critic Adam Gopnik tells  about learning to draw. He says, "Drawing, I now think, need not be the bones of art, but skill must always be the skeleton of accomplishment."  (Thanks Rise!) 


Perhaps you'd like to weigh in on that in the comments area below.