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Charles Schulz ink drawing (detail.)
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Unfortunately, I was now brought face to face with what was the real burden - my frustrations with this unfamiliarity. My background, that is, my formal art education, had never included training in cartooning, although I don't think that this is necessarily a bad place to be, but rather, a good place. Frustrations, especially concerning the unfamiliar, can sometimes create some of the most surprisingly resourceful means for one's work. Since I was familiar with a few of the Peanuts animated features, I think what I expected to see, once I turned on the projector, was a huge black and white suspended animation.
Thus, the studio lights were turned off and the projector was turned on.
Astonishing! Animated suspension is what pulsated across my huge 25 foot wall. These extraordinary, elegant black lines were presiding over my dark studio like suspension cables stretching across a bridge that gracefully wiggle from tower to tower. I had actually blown-up his strip much too large for the wall, which cropped off the text balloon and the comic-strip's borders, leaving only these larger than life beautiful black lines. They had motion like an echo in a canyon. But these lines revealed a confidence that understood how to hit it and quit it. I felt excited by it.
And, there too, once I had realized it, I began to find visual traces back to Chinese ink painting and, moreover, to the black and white paintings created by Abstract Expressionists Franz Kline, Willem De Kooning, Robert Motherwell, and others in the 1940's and 1950's. As you can imagine, since they were all very important early influences on my own work, my acquaintance with the inherent physical characteristics of his line was now instantaneous. This was solid ground again and I was thrilled.
I never made it past that first blown-up drawing of his strip. I sat in front of it for hours. I don't even remember leaving it.
A few months later, the meeting at his studio was on, and minutes afterwards, Charles Schulz and I were off to his drawing studio with the presentation drawings. He had told me that he could always recognize a copy of his work, and never really liked them. It was at this point that I was aware that he knew that I had redrawn them. So, I briefly explained to him my background, and, thus, the necessity to redraw his art in order to capture the feeling of his originals. Certainly, he was then aware that the popularity of his characters was not my main focus, but that I was completely fascinated with the brilliant architecture of his black ink line that formed them. I do feel, looking back, that this was something new to him, and do believe this to be the moment that inspired our friendship.
Critique turned to play as he broke out his ink and pen nibs. For a long time we drew nothing but lines - just lines! But, and most importantly, they were not just abstract marks; he was actually, with each stroke, showing me his own unique language.
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