Ethan Harris

Profile

City: Newton
Country: United States

Joined: May 2008

I have been doodling since I was little – filling drawing books with badly drawn horses and beasts from dark worlds, and pretty good bunnies too. Drawing and painting for me now is a mental retreat. I’ve become addicted to the feeling of peace I get when everything else in my mind turns off and I am focusing on what my brain, hand and pencil are collaborating on, the image on the paper. So, I’m a bit obsessed with it all, and feel I must do something every day if possible, however small.

When everything is meshing well and a work is going just the way I want it, I feel like I’m glowing. There is very little that compares with that feeling, except for the smiles on the faces of my children, they are, after all, my greatest work to date. My process varies, sometimes I keep drawing until something begins to appear on the paper, and other times I have something specifically in mind that I want to create.

Many of my works contain elements that have been a part of me and my artistic vision from the beginning – nature, bugs, birds, potent women, life and death. I try to let the elements tell a story, whether or not the story itself is altogether obvious, even to me. I feel like when I’m setting out on a new piece I’m letting my subconscious show my waking mind what it is that I want to do and who I am. I let it work through me, pencil to pulp, pen to tablet, and brush to board.