Chihuly Drawing

Book excerpt: This book chronicles four decades of Dale Chihuly's work on paper, a dynamic collection that is a fascinating study of variety. Many of the drawings are drenched in thick, bold layers of colour. Others are more elusive -- just a hint of form sketched with a fistful of pencils or a confidently manipulated charcoal. Over the years his style has evolved, becoming more abstract and more elaborate, and his drawings, in some cases, have become much larger. But there are no rules; a technique that Chihuly favoured a decade before may resurface again. The excitement of Chihuly's work on paper is in its unpredictability, and that in two dimensions Chihuly is free to let his grandest schemes come to fruition. Above all, Chihuly's work on paper revels in the monumental creativity that is essentially Chihuly.