Some years back I drew this picture on a light yellow paper in black ink. Then before I thought carefully, I framed it at a good expense. Photographing it or scanning it before I did this would have been smart. But hindsight is 20/20!

It was part of a whole series of similar drawings using black and white, blank space, negative and positive space, real objects, natural objects, celestial objects, and imagined objects or beings. Most involved images interpreted from my own Mohawk background; clans, traditional clothing, myths, beliefs, common symbols and my love of the power & strength to be found in my people and the natural world (Mother Earth, animals, the sky, water, fire, etc).

By re drawing in Inkscape (a vector drawing program similar to Illustrator) I was able to play with the images. The new format allowed me to make reasonably priced copies, have the ability to re-size without losing any detail, and to add color if I chose. One would think that drawing on the computer would be a lot faster. It turns out to be somewhat more tedious and at times time consuming -a flowing whimsical thin line that grows gradually to become a thicker line made by using vectors becomes 10 times as long to sort out, were I to just grab a pencil and utilize my years of training, practice and intuition, it would be accomplished in 20 seconds!