LINE TIME

our new podcast

Lettie Jane’s Intuitive Drawing is a weekly newsletter about making art. This year I am trying to publish 52 newsletters that are each an art lesson of sorts. They are an invitation to draw, if you feel inclined, but also a description of why I do. I encourage you to take what you need and leave the rest. These aren’t Hellebores in my mom’s garden, you don’t have to collect every one.

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Breesa Culver has taken a couple of my classes. She reached out to me not too long ago saying she had an IDEA. Breesa is a producer, an artist, a creative powerhouse, and seemingly friends with anyone I have ever liked. Her IDEA was to create a podcast using the warm-up exercise from my Abstract Drawing class, and now we have our first episode.

It’s Line Time!

Sanae looking incredibly cool in her sound station in the living room. I loved reading alongside Sanae’s playing, I felt like we were truly creating SPACE.

Breesa brought in Sanae Yamada of Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo, and Vive La Void to create a sonic space for the words. Jason Powers of Type Foundry was our sound engineer. We recorded our first three episodes in Breesa and Jason’s living room. Sanae was improvising the music while I read the exercise. Breesa and our guest artist Justine Pope drew alongside me as I read the words.

I felt like we were creating an audial room, a space to step inside and create a drawing. It was spell casting, art making, magic.

Justine Drawing.

This exercise originally came from a book I have called Drawing With Your Eyes Closed: The Art of The Art Assignment. The book interviews artists and teachers about assignments they’ve used and participated in. LINE TIME is based on a particular exercise provided by George Rush that he calls Erasure With Line. Like an art-lesson-folk-song, he claims it had been passed down with shifts in meaning and content from the Bauhaus movement. 

I have adapted and used this lesson in classes over the past couple of years, beginning the with same sentences I say in a rhythmic cadence:

I'm going to give you a set of instructions to follow. These instructions are intentionally cryptic. You can't ask any questions. You must reason your way through the problem.

One of Breesa’s drawings based on the exercise.

I find this set of instructions, which seem so simple at first, can help folks sit down and create without overthinking. The instructions can feel like rules until they become too complicated to follow. Starting with draw a circle can move to find hope in the darkness.

At the point the instructions get ambiguous it’s my intention that artists realize they can make their own rules. As artists, we can interpret the prompt to suit our needs, our choices, and our drawings. There is no right or wrong, “there is only make” (as Corita Kent’s rules say).

One of Sanae’s drawings using the exercise.

This recording can be used as a warm-up for any creative practice or work day. You can try it once or use it every day for a month.

One of my drawings based on the recording.

We will be dropping new episodes on the 3rd of every month. Follow along on Patreon or our Instagram page. I’d love to hear what you think and see your drawings!

I hope you are finding pockets of joy, calm and creative expression in your life somewhere.

Until next week.
Much love,
Lettie Jane

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And Then Some Tidbits

• An absolute perfect song:

• Take A Class!

  • Deeper Drawing (Saturday Afternoon) Apr/May 2024

    This class creates a container for artists to explore their practice more deeply. In the last session we were fortunate enough to be able to hold an art show of everyone’s work, I am so grateful to know and facilitate space for so many incredible artists!

    Dates: Saturdays, April 6th – May 18th
    Time: 1:30pm-4:30pm

  • Abstract Play (Saturday Afternoons) March

    Dates: March 16th & 23rd
    Time: 1:30-4:30

  • Intuitive Drawing (Saturday AM) Feb/Mar 2024

    Dates: Saturdays, February 24th – April 6th (no class March 30th for Spring Break)
    Time: 10:00am – 1:00pm

Bun Updates

• Although I am still teasing Matt for getting Stede Bunnyet in an attempt to clone Jiji (can’t be done, she has too much je ne sais quoi magic) he is growing on me. We call him the gentleman pirate and sometimes just the gentleman. Sometimes in the morning if I sit and meditate or lay down and do breath exercises he will gently LICK ME. Being licked by a rabbit is an immediate sign that the day will be okay.

  

  That's the Queen on the left and the Imposter (I mean Stede) on the right. You can tell me the length of the ears.