This is a drawing from what must have been late summer or early fall 1994. This is after I got back from Denver, and it’s the first group of drawings that I was doing with colored pencil. I don’t know how I had never encountered colored pencil. I don’t think that colored pencils were a brand new thing in 1994, but I can remember buying some… in Denver, after I had finished the paintings I had done there, but before I had left. I think I bought them at a Staples store, and I loved them. They were great, and I bought these, along with a battery powered electric pencil sharpener that would fit in the little satchel-like bag that I would carry my sketchbook and newly bought colored pencils in.
At some point, I think on my way to Denver, I had stopped off in Salt Lake City to visit my grandmother, and she had given me, for some reason, I don’t know why (maybe I asked for it? maybe she was about to throw it away? I don’t remember), some corduroy material. And I’d used that to wrap around some cardboard, which I then used as the cover for this slightly oversized sketchbook. I don’t know what size exactly… I think that maybe it’s about 15 by 10 inches or so, I’d have to dig it out and find it to know for certain. It’s in a box somewhere – I hope. But that’s what this sketchbook is
Anyway, It was late summer or probably autumn – a time when one’s thoughts turn to pumpkins. I think that was where I was going with this, and I think that just, somehow, the topic of pumpkin eater occurred to me. I don’t really know the history or origin of that little rhyme (I suppose Mother Goose), but let’s see, 1994, um, Yeah, I think that I was between girlfriends, and that might have suggested the pumpkin-eater’s plight to me. I assume that was the self-deprecating nature of the joke here. I can’t remember for sure, but I do know that wife-keeping has never been my strong suit.
But, this is a pretty nice little drawing, I think. Later on, a lot of the 1995 paintings came from drawings in this sketchbook. So these drawings ended up serving as studies for the paintings that I did the following year.
Here’s the 1995 painting that came from this sketch. It’s not a great photo of it but it’s what I’ve got. I’m not really sure what became of these canvases. I haven’t seen them for quite awhile – maybe I painted over them – I’ve gotten very confused about what I painted over and what I just misplaced. I remember that this would have been on a 48×36 inch unstretched canvas, most of this group that size, although their were also some smaller pieces as well. These were oils – this was the last group of oils I did, the following year I started working with acrylics. I think I’ll probably return to oil eventually – once I move to a more ventilated spot.