Sketchpad Warrior

April 13th, 2007 by Maureen McHugh

Ever so often, I just hit the Next Blog tab at the top of blogspot’s menu bar. Today I found Sketchpad Warrior, the site of an artist deployed to Iraq to draw and paint, to cover the Marine Corps and Marines.

The work is a vivid diary of the soldiers and the place.

So often he catches that weird relationship between tension and boredom that seems to characterize life in an occupied country.

Posted in Daily Life, Maureen, People, Politics | 3 Comments »

3 Responses

1. Morgan J. Locke Says:
   April 13th, 2007 at 6:10 pm

   I know some great photographers, but I love paintings. They express something the photo can’t reach.

2. Maureen McQ Says:
   April 13th, 2007 at 9:00 pm

   There is a sense of witness, filtered by viewpoint. It’s so obvious, even in a naturalistic style, that the scene is mediated by the painters consciousness, and by his attention.

   The sense of objectivity that photos bring is partially a lie, of course. The photographer filters reality by selection and the darkroom, and today can go further with photoshop techniques if he or she so desires. But photos feel like objective witness and paintings feel like testamonials.

3. Paula Helm Murray Says:
   April 13th, 2007 at 11:35 pm

   Thank you for sharing that. I’m going to be watching his blog because I love watching artists work.