drawing

Incident Report: February 22, 1954

| Kat Thorsen
Intake photos of Patient S.K., (left), J.O. (right)

February 22, 1954

DETAILED ATTENDANT’S REPORT ON UNUSUAL OCCURRENCES (Accidents, Assaults, Escapes, Etc.)

Report on the Accident of Reg. No. 26, [—]

Date of Occurrence 22/2/54

Time 12:40 PM

Place West Lawn Dining Room

Details Patients J.O. [right] and S.K [left] fighting on entering dining room. S.K. received his dinner then threw plate and contents at J.O.

Result Patient J.O. received cut on forehead.

Action taken Sent J.O. to West Lawn surgery with Nurse Anderson. Wound cleaned and dressed by Mr. Strong and patient returned to ward and seen by Dr. Karabanow.

Signed W. Emerton

Witness R. Anderson

—

Creative non-fiction

Medium: pencil crayon, ink, coffee, watercolour on drawing paper

Dead mouse (Stanley Park)

| Kat Thorsen

Rest In Peace little mouse, spotted on the side of the road in Stanley Park the other day.

Media: locally made natural ingredient watercolours (by Caitlin ffrench), Sargent watercolour crayons, coffee, salt on paper

Simple OWL drawing lesson using kid-grade felt pens

| Kat Thorsen

[Film by Anna Thorsen]

I teach OWL drawing for most, if not all, of my creative engagement workshops.  I use the OWL image as it is easy to break it down into simple geometric shapes on which to build form.

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I usually use china marker.

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But we don’t always have the “right” material.

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We have to work with what we have. Below are OWL drawings by SFU Restorative Justice students using just dollar store felt pens.

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Working with what you have. Freedom within limits. That’s when magic happens.

See also:

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A quick creative project on last day of 2019: The Death and Burial of Cock Robin

| Kat Thorsen

Rainy stay-inside sick day today. I have stayed in PJs and creative process.

I spent the last few hours interpreting The Death and Burial of Cock Robin with ink, watercolour and salt. [Source: Gutenberg Press. Original text by anonymous circa 14th-17th century]

Chanticleer, what want you here, So early in the morning?

“Cock-a-doodle-doo,” says he, pray don’t you see the day’s already dawning?

All the birds in the air fell to sighing and sobbing,

When they hear the bell toll for poor Cock Robin.


Thou cruel Sparrow

Thy pointed dart

Has robbed me of half my heart;

Ah! he is, no more,

Who us’d with me to fly –

He is slain, he is gone –

And I follow – I die.

Goodbye 2019. CHEERS TO A CREATIVE FULFILLING 2020!

I don’t bleed anymore. Finding solace in journal pages.

| Kat Thorsen

“These are the days of tweeting, blogging, posting, instagraming, snapchatting, you name it. Everyone seems to be doing it. Some people seem very comfortable expressing every morsel of their living and breathing and eating into the world. Not that this isn’t totally fascinating to the one sharing, but most people (including me) don’t care about what you ate for breakfast, who you ate it with, and what you were wearing. However, when someone writes with a raw vulnerability, expressing with exquisite clarity a thought or feeling that I recognize in myself, I tend to sit up and take notice. Truth has a way of getting my attention.

In my work with grieving clients, I find that one of the most helpful activities I can encourage them to do is to write. “Write about what?” they say. Write about what is on your mind. Tell your story. Share your experiences, the secrets that need to be let out. Open your heart, feel the love, anger, pain, joy, sorrow, gratitude, regrets – whatever is present in the moment – and put it on the paper. Write letters, notes, poems, rants. Anything. Just express.”

– Carrie Doubts, Finding Solace Through Writing

Turn the page- visualizing fading memory

| Kat Thorsen

My latest favourite daily practice is to quickly sketch and then saturate the drawing with watercolour crayon and coffee.  I love the feel of the wrinkled page. How the coffee ages the image.  The way a drenched drawing has a life of its own – beyond my control.

I am most in love with the drawing’s ghost.  What happens on the other side of the page.  I am moved by how the resulting image seems to illustrate the concept of fading memory.

“Not only something, but also someone could be there and not there at the same time. And that someone: me.”

– Gerda Saunders, In Memory’s Last Breath

The importance of doodling…

| Kat Thorsen

Thank you’s to Tove Jansson for her “Lilla My” character that I can’t seem to stop doodling

Spontaneous drawings may relieve psychological distress, making it easier to attend to things. We like to make sense of our lives by making up coherent stories, but sometimes there are gaps that cannot be filled, no matter how hard we try. Doodles fill these gaps, possibly by activating the brain’s “time travel machine,” allowing it to find lost puzzle pieces of memories, bringing them to the present, and making the picture of our lives more whole again. With this greater sense of self and meaning, we may be able to feel more relaxed and concentrate more.

– Srini Pillay, MD

Hi-a-tus from Facebook and Instagram to rejuvenate my creative process

| Kat Thorsen

“Set your boundaries and protection but at the same time, look to your own inner friction and allow it to ignite something that will have a positive outcome. This can be an exceptionally creative month especially if you focus on what is ahead instead of what is behind you. Keep your eyes on the door on the other side of the room of ten thousand distractions and you will stay on the golden line.

You can also use this month for helping to clear, dissolve, and transform the things in your life that need to evolve to a higher state. We often mention that in order to fully step into something new you need to first create space for it.”

– The Power Path July 2019 Forecast

I have been feeling a need to refocus on this blog as my personal place to get fresh perspective and rejuvenate my creative process – to get back to a purer creative process. And to take a hiatus from sharing my process in small spurts on Facebook and Instagram.

Ut Pictura Poesis- the narrative potential of the drawing

| Kat Thorsen

I draw pictures.

I imagine storylines.

I imagine a narrative, a comic, a screenplay…

There is nothing quite as on target as the prose I write in my mind when on the bus- whilst staring out the window to deal with motion sickness, taking in the landscape. But alas, those musings instantly disappear as soon as I pull the cord for my stop.

The difference between what I imagine for the narrative and what I actually create is… indescribable. I am incapable of bringing it to life. Yet, the passion continues, the ideas simmer.

I draw pictures. I draw voraciously. I don’t care if it is shit. I breathe. I draw.

Yet, I want to write. To write well. To tell a proper story. I want to write then illustrate to it. But instead, I am stuck in the visual- I seem to always illustrate first. Then the writing tries to appear. But the result is an unsatisfactory mishmashed scrapbook.

Is drawing a type of writing? If writing on paper is mark making, and drawing is mark making- perhaps I am writing when I draw? Is the narrative I seek actually embedded in the image, unfolding if you follow the line?

It is the business of the dramatist to make good pictures, and whether it be done by the players or the painter, what matter, so they be effective, and the story worth telling; and how shall they be better told than as the author intended they should be represented?

… the eye is to behold, and the mind to be moved… ut pictura poesis. – John Eagle

The sparrow is mightier than the machine

| Kat Thorsen

This morning, at the 23 bus stop in the West End, I heard the overwhelming LOUDNESS of humanity– cars, buses, construction, garbage container being dumped into a truck, a plane overhead, motorcycles.

Cutting through all that noise was the song of one little sparrow. One little sparrow with a song so much mightier and awe-inspiring than the machines surrounding us.

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China marker, watercolor, acrylic on newsprint, April 8, 2019

And at that moment, a lilting melody lifts to the moon as a single sparrow sings.
― Lisa Ann Sandell, Song of the Sparrow

SOLD: “I saw the angel in the marble.” (Drawing on marbled paper)

| Kat Thorsen

ART SALE:

I received some gorgeous Italian paper from Terry and Kevin Cowan recently.  I let the marbled sheet guide my mark-making. No planning. Just unfolding. It’s my form of meditation.

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I saw the angel in the marble. (Katarina Thorsen, 2019)

20″ x 27″

China marker, acrylic, water colour on Italian marbled paper

ART SALE: $85.00 CAD (including shipping)

To purchase:

PayPal or e-transfer to britakatarina@gmail.com

(include mailing address)

 

Bird School- Head feather groups

| Kat Thorsen

I am obsessed with birds.  I have this strange belief that I will not uncover truths that I seek in my art without first understanding birds fully.  So I am taking myself through my own Bird School– developing my own rudimentary curriculum and drawing out the answers and stitching together the truths.

Recall:

Part- Parts of a Songbird

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Today’s lesson: Head Feather Groups

The head feathers can be divided into five main groups:

Other subdivisions of head feathers:

Resource:

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Bird School- Parts of a Songbird

| Kat Thorsen

I am obsessed with birds.  I have this strange belief that I will not uncover truths that I seek in my art without first understanding birds fully.  So I am taking myself through my own Bird School– developing my own rudimentary curriculum and drawing out the answers and stitching together the truths.

Today’s lesson: Parts of a Songbird

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Resource:

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Spirit Guide.

| Kat Thorsen

I was going to write tonight.

Instead I fell down a nap hole and dreamt of a fox.

I was going to write tonight about how much I hate my face, but instead looked up foxes and symbolism.  And put on a pot of coffee.

I was going to write tonight about how I (could) love my face, but instead pulled out a drawing pad and turned on Netflix (crime, French).

I was going to write tonight about how strange it was finding my house filled with people last weekend working on my passion project and discussing crime and science, but instead pulled out china markers and white acrylic paint.

I was going to write tonight about how the wind storm swept in as spirits started swirling on Sunday evening, but instead made some eggos with fresh strawberries and honey.

I was going to write tonight about coming across a 1940’s fur coat strewn over a park bench by the Hotel Sylvia.  But instead put my drawing board across my lap.

I was going to write tonight about navigating anxiety, but instead tapped into my subconscious.

I was going to write tonight but my hand just drew and drew and drew.

Spirit Guide. 18×24″ (china marker on newsprint)

Lore has it that a fox sighting was thought to be a signal from the spirits of the deceased. Fox animal symbolism takes a turn of intelligence in the Celtic realm, as the Celts believed the fox to be a guide, and was honored for its wisdom. The Celts understood the fox knows the woods intimately, and they would rely upon the fox as their guide in the spirit world. [source]