No Failure

Drawing without fear.

Apologies for being away from the newsletter. I had a surprise work thing. But now it’s over. Or is it? I don’t know. It could be lurking around the corner waiting to surprise me again. I hope not. But I also kinda hope it does… anyway…

I’ve have several little exercises already written for Substack, but I’m psyching myself out. Are they good enough? Are they anything at all? I’m normally quite confident about my writing in cartoons but with a newsletter there’s no pretty image for me to hide my ugly writing behind. Honestly, it’s scary. And this fear, on top of that work surprise, is almost too much. I’m sensitive, jittery, over-caffeinated.

But, I guess I should face my fears. In the words of FDR, “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.” Although to be fair he never had to worry about the fear of embarrassing himself across the entire internet.

Anyway… to the exercise.

For this, and for all the future exercises, you will need to choose an object. Preferably, an object you can return to over and over. Something interesting. Something which holds your attention. Something you want to know everything about. Ex. a crumpled shirt over a chair, an unevenly stacked pile of books. For me, I have chosen a jade tree.

My jade tree has a story to tell. It’s a survivor, half-dead, uneven. Its origin story is not unique, purchased from Ikea in 2008. However, living has transformed it.

Once you choose your object, you’ll need your tools.

THE TOOLS:

2H or softer Pencil. A stopwatch. Paper.

THE DURATION:

5 mins-ish.

THE EXERCISE:

Repeatedly draw your object but in these decreasing time increments.

2 min., 1 min., 45 secs., 35 secs., 30 secs., 25 secs., 20 secs, 10 secs.

Try to capture the entire object. Don’t stop. DONT ERASE! Speed up your hand. Resist the impulse to make it perfect. When finished, line them all up on the floor and compare.

THE LESSON:

Moving quickly puts us in drawing survival mode. Which does a couple things; we stop thinking, we stop making decisions, we just react. This exercise is also a microcosm of art making in general. Look at your drawings on the floor. Earlier drawings provide knowledge for later drawings in the sequence. You instinctually borrow marks, shapes, lines, shadows, etc.

And while these drawings may not be your favs, they are successful in that they are part of the bigger sequence of your ongoing art creation. If you just keep drawing there can be no failure.