All About the Marks

In a previous Blog article, I mentioned how each name in my full name represents a segment of my life. My art shifted in the same manner. I started out being obsessed with drawing an image exactly like a photo or magazine image, from the facial expression to each strand of hair. I lost the original magazine page or I would have credit the photographer for the images in Phase I of the video.

My art shifted completely from exact reference to surreal and unreal images, shown in Phase II of the video. Some artists compared my work to Escher and Dali. At the time (this was a long time ago and yes, I am ancient) I didn’t know who the 2 famous artists were and had to look them up. I was stunned by their work but, in the same instance, I was crippled by their work. Anything I created after that felt like a copy of their style. I was devastated. At the same time, some different circumstances in life effected me and I stopped drawing for 15 years.

A job offer in Germany changed my life. While in Germany, I discovered and attended the Strokes Art Fair, in Munich. For those who do not know what this event is, it is a place where urban artists get together to showcase their work. A lot of artists are graffiti artist. The artistic side of my brain awaken and the urge to create began to flare. Phase III of the video show images of these artists.

I was afraid that I would not be able to draw again, but maybe starting again at the beginning would help. I again clipped magazine images and started drawing faces. I really enjoy drawing faces, especially the eyes and mouths. Phase IV of the video show some of these drawings, none of which are for sale, but mostly drawn as studies. 

I wanted to draw more than just faces. I wanted to create something surreal, maybe even unreal, in the fantastical realm. My art shifted yet again, as in Phase V of the video, with images of faeries and butterfly metamorphosis. 

I find that I really just love laying marks on paper, or board. With anything: pen, pencil, ink pen, paint. It occur to me that I like the idea of laying down a mark and letting that mark show me where the next mark should/must go. The marks essentially guide the image. That’s how the ink wash and ink pen stipplings in Phase VI of the video are created. The initial marks are done with India ink and then many tiny dots are added with ink pen. It’s mostly this process that I used to create the Inktobers in 2020, just following the marks from the ink wash and see where it gets me.

I’m not sure if I’m ready to be totally abstract. I still like a figure or a recognizable shape in my images. My pencil work is the same, with each pencil mark guiding the next mark, with minimal planning and sketching. 

When it comes to creating art, I kept hearing the words, “Be yourself”, “Be authentic”. What if being authentic means it’s all about the process, rather than the image. I kept trying to sketch an image, but in the end, the marks always guide me to a different image, maybe one I hadn’t thought about.

Links to artists (in order of appearance) in Phase III

http://www.stroke-artfair.com

Instagram: @strokesartfair

Irish Urban artist Fin DAC, instagram: @findac

Isreali Urban street artist Jack TML

French street artist Romi One

What’s In A Name?

I’ve had many names in my life, and I’m not talking about nicknames or pet names or even name callings, although I’ve had many names from name callings as well. I’m talking about actual names, my birth name and my adopted name being some of them. It’s hard for me to associate myself with any one name in particular because my name change so much through my life. I don’t feel I identify myself by a name. Rather, I identify myself with my art creation and the name under my creations. I feel my art is define less as “art” and more as “creations” or a “created existence”, something that just comes into being without any solid representation, just a thought, a feeling, a fleeting glimpse of light and darkness intermingling, fighting each other for dominance.

I’m getting away from signing my whole name to my art and just initial them with “SDV”, which represents my most current name and the one that remained the longest in my life. If you follow me, you probably know what the “D” and the “V” stand for, which are my middle and last names. The “S” is the initial of my first name. Each letter of my initial actually represents a segment of my life I hold close and dear to my heart. Maybe I’ll write more about those moments at a later time.

There will be a shift in my art and how I represent myself. I’m trying to embrace who I am as a creator, trying to not feel like I fall short because I don’t think and create the same way most other artists create. I never felt like I belonged in any genre, whether fantasy, abstract, surreal, nature scenes, pop culture or even editorial. I feel like there should be a new category: Chaos or chaotic, maybe abstract chaos, surreal chaos. I’m just trying to tame my inner chaos. 

The above image is titled “I Am Me” and represents how I create art. Read more about “I Am Me” in my previous blog here

Tiny Ink Doodles in My Legendeer Sketchbook

I find that I really cannot sketch in the same sense that every other artists can sketch. Even though my brain understands that it is a “sketch” in the sense that it can just be a few lines that tell the artist the idea in his/her head that only he/she can understand or discern. However, every time I sketch, and I looked at it and it’s not a complete picture, I feel weird and icky inside. I’m not sure how to describe it. 

I decided to stop fighting with my inner self and give in and do what it wants me to do. So … I started doodling, just mindless scribbles with my ball point pen, any ball point pen. In fact, free ones are even better, you know, the ones they leave out for you to take in hotel rooms, banks, conferences, job fairs, technological expos, etc. 

The other quirkiness that I decided to stop fighting with myself about is the fact that I have to draw in a pre-defined area. I can’t just draw loosely in one area of a page and leave the rest blank. It bothers me to no end and I find that I have to completely fill the page with something, anything else. So … I made little rectangles in my sketchbook, perfectly dividing the page into rectangles with (almost) perfect spacings between them. Unless it is already one of those really tiny sketchbooks, then I just made a boundary around the page. 

As I scribble, it’s like my fingers are just rambling and my mind sort of wanders and I’m not even paying attention to what’s on the paper most of the time. Then I see something in the scribble and I try to draw it out, no pun intended. Sometime I do have brief flashes of an idea before I start. That’s when it’s a lot of fun to refine the idea in scribbles. 

This video presents the scribbles I did so far. It’s a pretty big sketchbook, even with the beginning portion of the sketchbook filled with other sketches from my Legendeer trip.

Ink Doodle video 1

Getting Back Into the Groove For 2022

Hope everyone is having a great new year so far. I’m looking forward to another year of art creations, exhibits and conventions. 

I’ve made a few changes at the end of last year. I dropped my domain, ArtbyDominiqueVargo, and just kept the site hosted by Wix. It is a place that has links to all my other social media and shops.

https://beneaththecryingmoon.wixsite.com/chaoticabstraction

I opened a Big Cartel shop with shop name Journey Of Imagination. I also decided to keep my Etsy shop but change the shop name to match. Feel free to peruse both shops. They will mostly have similar items but there could be something in one shop that is not in the other. You can reach the shops here:

https://journeyofimagination.bigcartel.com

https://www.etsy.com/shop/JourneyOfImagination

Those are the biggest changes. My YouTube channel, Blog page, FaceBook, Instagram and Twitter are all the same.

This year I am set for my usual conventions, Awesome Con in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore Comic-Con in Baltimore, MD. I will have more information as the cons approach.

Awesome Con will be held on 3-5 June 2022, at the Walter E Washington Convention Center. They always have lots of fun activities for kids as well. I will be in the booth area again this year, instead of the artist alley. 

Baltimore Comic-con will be later in the year, 28-30 October 2022, at the Baltimore Convention Center. I will be in the artist alley for this convention.

This year I’ve also signed up for a booth at Heroes Convention in Charlotte, NC. It will be held on 24-26 June 2022 at the Charlotte Convention Center. Heroes Con will be celebrating their 40th anniversary. Come celebrate with us!

And lastly, I’m very excited to announce that my artwork “Broken” is selected for showcasing in Emotions 2021 international online group exhibition. It will also be published in The Book of Arts: Emotions online publication. The exhibition officially opened online on 15 January 2022 and will continue for one month. Here is the link for the exhibit

gallerium.art/emotions-2021
Emotions 2021 - My Page

This year I will be “going back to the drawing board”, so to speak. I want to make more little sketches, but I found that the only way I can sketch is to do these little ball point pen ink doodle that ended up being tiny little pictures themselves. I’m having so much fun doing them. I’m also doing small ink stippling in what I call my “No Judgement Sketchbook.” It is a sketchbook where I just make marks and not worry about what or how I feel about it, or what anyone else think about it. It frees my mind to just concentrate on the mark making instead of trying to make a picture. The previous post shows this sketchbook. There will be much more to come. These small inklings might turn into something else, who knows. If you are a current follower or patron, I thank you for your support. If you haven’t or aren’t, I hope you decide to stay as I share my mark making journey into chaos and making it through to the other side (hopefully). 

Sketchbook Stippling

 For the start of the new year, here are a few stipplings I did in a small sketchbook.

I like making marks. I like dots. I like making marks with dots … lots of dots … dots all around … everywhere … until something grows, from nothing, and becomes something … or not. It can just “be”, curves, waves, energy, movements, whirling and eddying, capturing the eyes, leading the mind. Get lost in the noise.

Sketchbook Stippling Video

Back To Conventions For 2021

After almost two years of pandemic hiatus, it felt so great to be back to conventions. I started just doing local conventions in Washington D.C. (Awesome Con) and Baltimore, MD (Baltimore Comic-Con).  I’m so happy to be sharing my work with new and old fans alike.

I introduced my latest project, the personal connection totems. These first totems are prints of my various work mounted on 4 inches round backs with circular rings designed so that the artwork can be hung or placed in any orientation.

At both of these conventions, I presented several new pieces that do not yet have prints made and really wasn’t going to have prints made. I was asked many times about prints for the artwork “Awaiting Dawn”. I think there is enough interest that I am considering making prints for this new piece. I will post updates on my various social media when I get prints made. 

If you’re interested, please stay tuned for more info and thank you so much for your interest.

My Color Pencil Samples - Derwent, Faber Castell, Caran D'Ache

These sets of color pencils have been sitting around so I decided to create a sample palette of all the color pencils I have and see how these colors are. They are pretty fun to play with. I must say that I am very partial to the very expensive Caran D’Ache. They feel really nice going over texture of the paper.

Do you have a favorite color pencil brand, or a favorite color?