Drawing Life 4
Let’s think about drawing again—about what we can do with it. Everyone’s eager to learn to draw better, to make things look like they’re supposed to look. But how much do we need to bother with that? If we want to look at flowers we can go pick some. I tend to do that. But maybe you’ve been bowled over by the incredible beauty of a rose and that’s what you want to share. That’s great and then you’ll have to practice to get some accuracy into your drawing.
But there are other ways to draw. Maybe there’s something else you want to say. Maybe a simple white line drawing of a flower on a background so dark it implies a universe of space, maybe a drawing like that hints at your feeling that the universe is essentially beautiful. That’s it’s blooming. You’re drawing doesn’t have to be so accurate for that but it needs to feel assured.
Too often, people get hung up on verisimilitude and forget what they’re trying to say. They obsess about getting the drawing perfect and they end up with something so uptight the only thing it says is—uptight.
People say things like—I’m not a very good artist because my flower looks like nothing. But really art is not about that. Isn’t art about what you see? Not just the flower but what you see in it that comes from your experience, your life. To convey that you need to have a sure hand. So scribble a little more. Loosen up. Get to know the hand you’ve been dealt.
October 10th, 2006 at 12:32 pm
“Get to know the hand you’ve been dealt.”
well said…