nadina mackie jackson: Drawn

This time of restricted contact and cancelled concerts feels very familiar to me, accustomed as I am to solitude, yet clearly it is different. I have stayed home for most 60 days, which is an all-time record. I am not bored, and I have so much to do... painting basement rooms and building a garden and proofing my book, rebuilding the Council of Canadian Bassoonists with our new Board (lotsa Zoom meetings) and practicing...

For fun, I responded when my neighbours started a daily drawing group on March 20 via FaceBook. They are low key, welcoming and unfailingly cheerfully positive. and I have participated about 50 times. For some reason, I use recycled cardstock or paper from packaging with a very limited palette (black felt pen, HB2 pencil, white pencil crayon). The paper is gray or brown, and the texture ranges from coarse to just heavy and the pieces are very small.The drawings are all in response to themes, but per usual, I often drift away from the original intention.

Here are 29 of the small drawings, a couple of them made up from 2 or 3 pieces of paper, moments from the cool spring days, moments where I returned to the fun of being a kid and making some drawings. All are done with in a short time and might become the basis for a bigger drawing. Somehow, time is my own when making these marks on paper. The one of the little blue bassoon was in response to the challenge to close my eyes and draw something.

Take good care, everyone. See you in the future at a concert or an art show in the new world that will come out of all of this. Don't be scared but look after yourselves.