I recently started a new series of watercolor and ink illustrations. I’ve been trying to come up with a good way of describing why I am doing this. The best thing I could come up with was the Loss of Control With The Ability to Regain It. I’m still not sure if that sums it up, but it does help to give some sense of the decisions I am making. I often make these detail oriented illustrations. They take all of my concentration, my hand gets cramped and tired because the line work is so intense, and I have total anal control over the typography I incorporate into each piece. I found myself wanting to escape that recently, so I started what I’m calling my blind-sketch explorations. Thus the loss of control. I created the above illustration while watching, The Birds. My goal was to blind sketch some of the characters in the movie, and also capture some of the interesting things they were saying. Although I do look down at the piece after completing a character, it’s only to see the space I still have to work with. The addition of color comes when all of the ink has been laid down. The ink is the loss of control and it’s exciting. The color is regaining control, although it’s erratic and unplanned.