shadesofmauve (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shadesofmauve) wrote2010-03-05 03:24 pm
shadesofmauve) wrote2010-03-05 03:24 pm
Entry tags:
Oh, right -- I LIKE drawing (Xposted from SkellingtonArt)
I've been blaming my lack of art productivity on my recent house purchase. A related factor is the garden — I've spent a lot of time working myself to exhaustion clearing ivy and blackberries out of the yard. I'm finally to the point where I can start putting plants IN, though, and I'm afraid of putting them in the wrong spot...so today I pulled out my sketchbook to draw what's there now and decide what should be there next.
Sitting in the sun with a pencil and cup of coffee, birds singing on the feeder, and my attention focused on that one visual task, I remembered something that is ridiculously easy to forget.
I really like drawing.
It's relaxing, quiet, and centering.
It's easy to get overwhelmed feeling like I need to get results: paintings to sell, commissions to collect on, designs to finish, portfolio to build. Focusing on the finished product makes it easy to forget the process. When sketching, I think it makes the end result worse, too. Stress and frustration come through in my marks. It's like the adage about writing — No-one wants to write a novel, but everyone wants to have written a novel. Ideally, drawing shouldn't be like that (and neither should writing!).
It seems stupidly obvious that we're most productive when we're enjoying what we do. I've spent whole weekends in my yard this winter because I like working outdoors and playing in the dirt, not because I'm under some delusion about it being garden-party-gorgeous by July. I don't know why I have to remind myself of the contentment I feel while sketching, when I have no problem convincing myself to run outside (in fact, my housemate has threatened to tie me down if it would help me get indoor work done instead of pruning). I usually turn to video games or movies in the evening, even though I actually enjoy music or art more. I think it's because the bit of my brain that's still in highschool thinks that anything productive is work (highschool-brain hates work). Clearly, adult brain needs to assert that we picked THIS work because we LIKE it!
When I look back on my recent(ish) vacations, the thing I really miss about them compared to my first European trip was the time I gave myself to sketch. I got in a few things on my 2008 trip to the UK, and a few in Japan, but when you only open the sketchbook twice there's a lot of pressure to draw something memorable, which usually results in something memorably bad.
Lesson learned? I'm going on a little trip to BC next month, and I'll be telling my sweetheart to bring a novel so I can get in some guilt-free drawing. For now, I'm off to sketch stage two of my garden!
(X-posted from Skellington Art. Hopefully it will show up on the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
skellingtonart feed, which hopefully you're all reading, but I don't entirely trust the reliability of the feed and I want to get people's reactions to this.)
Sitting in the sun with a pencil and cup of coffee, birds singing on the feeder, and my attention focused on that one visual task, I remembered something that is ridiculously easy to forget.
I really like drawing.
It's relaxing, quiet, and centering.
It's easy to get overwhelmed feeling like I need to get results: paintings to sell, commissions to collect on, designs to finish, portfolio to build. Focusing on the finished product makes it easy to forget the process. When sketching, I think it makes the end result worse, too. Stress and frustration come through in my marks. It's like the adage about writing — No-one wants to write a novel, but everyone wants to have written a novel. Ideally, drawing shouldn't be like that (and neither should writing!).
It seems stupidly obvious that we're most productive when we're enjoying what we do. I've spent whole weekends in my yard this winter because I like working outdoors and playing in the dirt, not because I'm under some delusion about it being garden-party-gorgeous by July. I don't know why I have to remind myself of the contentment I feel while sketching, when I have no problem convincing myself to run outside (in fact, my housemate has threatened to tie me down if it would help me get indoor work done instead of pruning). I usually turn to video games or movies in the evening, even though I actually enjoy music or art more. I think it's because the bit of my brain that's still in highschool thinks that anything productive is work (highschool-brain hates work). Clearly, adult brain needs to assert that we picked THIS work because we LIKE it!
When I look back on my recent(ish) vacations, the thing I really miss about them compared to my first European trip was the time I gave myself to sketch. I got in a few things on my 2008 trip to the UK, and a few in Japan, but when you only open the sketchbook twice there's a lot of pressure to draw something memorable, which usually results in something memorably bad.
Lesson learned? I'm going on a little trip to BC next month, and I'll be telling my sweetheart to bring a novel so I can get in some guilt-free drawing. For now, I'm off to sketch stage two of my garden!
(X-posted from Skellington Art. Hopefully it will show up on the
skellingtonart feed, which hopefully you're all reading, but I don't entirely trust the reliability of the feed and I want to get people's reactions to this.)
no subject