Capturing the essence of aardvarks

With these aardvark sketches, I was trying to capture the essence of their shape. I wanted ti use very few lines and keep to simple, two-dimensional shading.

Pursuing clarity and simplicity

As someone living with chronic illness and disabilities, and as a transracial adoptive parent, I often feel like a lot of the things I deal with are overwhelmingly complex. There are no simple stories. The nuance and multiple perspectives are where the wisdom seems to live.

And yet, not everything is complicated, and I can tend to overcomplicate things sometimes too. I love the delicious feeling of clarity when I find ways to see into the core or essence of a situation. When I muster words, metaphors, or images to express the essence of an experience. These sketches were a practice in pursuing and expressing that kind of clarity and simplicity. An antidote to over-complication and overwhelm.

Giving up control and fussing

With these sketches, I also experimented with drawing with my non-dominant hand and with my eyes closed. These are two practices for drawing that always help me to give up my fussing and engage that part of myself that’s loves to give up control and caution, and just play.

I love how these turned out.