I can accidentally come back to a drawing approach that I had forgotten about and rediscover its virtues in a deeper way. It can seem cyclical. On Sunday I started the drawing session using the side of a broken piece of graphite about an inch long. I worked the short, one minute poses placing touches rather than making lines.  Here are two of the short poses.

I touched all around the body very quickly and was surprised to find that I had the feeling of capturing something of the essence of the head, torso and limbs in just a few marks. This was enough to inspire me to use the same technique for longer poses in which case I was able to keep adding layers of marks to build up the forms. There is something about placing marks rather that drawing lines that makes me see in a different way. perspective becomes more intuitive and the sense of form becomes heightened. I continued to work quickly circling through the figure again and again. Here are two ten minute poses.

The teachings of my Japanese painting teacher came back to me. I was creating images that were very unified as a single element. This was a concept the Kaji Aso worked very hard to get across to his students. It is difficult to explain but actually pretty simple. The darks and lights of the whole form work together and define each other. They do not need lines contain them. The whole figure is like a single drop of water that is held together and made one by some invisible force. Below on the right is the drawing from my session that best exemplifies this unity. On the left is an ink painting by Kaji Aso.