Since May, we have been packing up, packing out and moving houses every few days.  This is what I was able to cobble together before leaving Morocco.  I’ve learned one chief thing and that is, if you stop working, you lose your mojo.  Somehow, even if your art feels like junk, you’re stretching yourself and it can lead to something.

May 24, Conte Crayon, Pastel & Charcoal

For example, I didn’t love the sketch above, but it led to something awesome, like this pastel of a UFO.

May 24, “It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a flying dolphin,” Oil Pastel

I got stuck on pencil drawings for a while because I only had a few materials at my disposal.  This one of my son turned out well…

May 27, “Newborn William,” HB Pencil

…The one of my daughter, not so well.  It looks like her body for sure, but that face is the face of a friend from back in the States.  Friend, you may recognize yourself.  I’m sorry I made you cross-eyed.

May 27, “A Friend’s Face on My Daughter’s Body,” HB Pencil

Then nostalgia struck.

May 28, “Old House in Virginia,” HB Pencil

June 5, “Curves and Intersections,” Brush Pens

I think in a few years, I’ll be glad I sketched the interiors of my Moroccan house.  For now, they feel like grasping at straws.

June 6, “Breakfast Table,” HB Pencil

Jun 6, “Vegetative Shapes,” Brush Pens

Although the texture does not photograph well, this one was quite successful:

June 15, “Pieces,” Acrylic on Cardboard

So I attempted another similar one, sketching the concept first:

June 19, Conceptual Drawing of “Pieces II,” Brush Pens

The finished product was detestable, so sometimes, you lose your mojo anyway. I applaud myself for trying to paint with basically one brush and a few tubes of acrylic paint, which was all I held back from the moving company.

June 20, “Pieces II,” Acrylic on Cardboard

But what I really applaud myself for is my Moroccan masterpiece which didn’t exactly come into being as I had expected.  You may remember the gem I found in the trash piles many months ago.  It sat and it sat, but the inspiration never struck.  I had a few ideas here and there.  Every time I resolved to do something with it, I would find it sitting in a puddle of water, or covered with ants.  On the last day (and I mean literally, the LAST day), I gathered a few dispersed packing materials left behind by the movers, some rusted metal found on the sidewalk, and some stray screws that didn’t seem to belong to anything. With these things, I created this:

June 26, “Right-Side-Up,” Scavenged materials: scrap metal, packaging tape, packaging paper, twine, corrugated cardboard

Ok, ok, so masterpiece is an overstatement, but I had always intended to do something really great with my up-side-down picture of horses.  And in my mind, it’s still my magnum opus.  Does it help if I tell you that it didn’t photograph well on my camera phone?  I couldn’t take it with me on the plane and surely, no one wanted it, so in the end, my Moroccan masterpiece went right back where in came from, the trash.