What It Feels Like To Draw

This is the first time that I have posted an unfinished piece. This is the current project I am working on. The others were drawings I have done earlier in the year to illustrate particular points. Since I wanted to address what it feel like to draw, I decided the current project would be more appropriate.

There is something sensuous about the feel of the graphite being dragged off the point of the pencil as you draw a line. So many things come into play as the process happens. Its not the choice of paper or the hardness of the pencil or the angle or sharpness of the point or the pressure being applied or the countless other aspects involved with creating the drawing. Its all of them combined, the balance of all the minutia in harmony adding up to the seamless whole Thing that is the experience of creating. Some people refer to this as being in the "zone" and its a useful description. It certainly isn't everyday experience. Creation taps into more resources then are normally available, inhabiting that boundary line in the mind that is one step into the subconscious where intuition lies. Its the feeling of yourself flowing out through your fingertips out onto the paper. This brings to mind something else I heard in undergrad. "All art is self portrait." When we create, something of our essence is captured there. Its lightning in a bottle. It cant exist but it does. Art is one of those things that just happens. I don't mean to imply that it's easy or hard, it's something different. There are aspects about it that can't quite be pinned down. I don't think of it as "now I am going to draw this line in just such a fashion" because if I approach it in just such a fashion, it won't be right. Do you think of every step and movement as you're walking? No, you just do it. Art is like that too. It is possible to dissect the process but it's like peeling an onion. Once you finish removing all the layers you don't have a complete onion anymore. It's the whole thing that's important, not the pieces.