I’ve been doing something for nine days with the intention of seeing if it stuck before blogging about it.
I’m going to sketch daily for a year.
Gah. Even typing it right there is scary to me. I’m not an artist.
It took the previous blog post to spur me into asking why I wasn’t.
I already knew from writing that doing the work is the only way you learn to do something better. But even that is a judgment, right? If I look at my work and ask myself, “Is this good?” or even “Is this better than the last one?” then I’m assigning value to what I’m doing.
And what I’m doing, drawing something every day, doesn’t need value attached to it. I’m doing it as a practice, as a meditation, as a way of really LOOKING at an object I’m sharing space with in the world. (I’m reading Lala’s copy of The Zen of Seeing, and it’s awesome.)
That’s why I’m putting up the sketches at Instagram (I’ve just joined, friend me there!). That part, the cataloguing, feels important to me. We’re so good at posting the pretty and the perfect. We like Pinterest for a reason. Pretty is attractive. We like the well lit, the well composed, the perfect. It’s good to open that up and post the real things, the attempts that don’t work as well as the ones that do.
If I don’t post anything, I can easily fail out of the challenge and no one will know (I like accountability). If I only post what I think is good or even just good enough, then I’m constantly judging my sketches. But if I just draw them and post every one, even the ridiculously ugly failures, then I’m only being accountable to my decision to do so, and I can be, if not exactly proud, then happy with each one.
That said, the only one I’m proud of so far is this one, so please indulge my posting it here, firmly judged and found acceptable:
And hey, speaking of doing things quickly and badly, I'm signed up for NaNoWriMo again this year (I'm going to start my 2016 release, and I'm SO excited about it)! Would you like to help me get to the Night of Writing Dangerously? Best night of the year! SO MUCH CANDY!
Here's the link to donate, if you'd like to. It's a great cause, all the money goes to the Young Writers Program, helping kids to be creative. Thanks for considering!
*UPDATE: MY FAIRY GODMOTHER did it again. My sister and I will be going to the Night of Writing Dangerously. I'm not sure if she knows how much it means to me that she donates this every year (and oh my goodness, if she stops, it will be TOTALLY OKAY. I don't need this. Don't take from your IRA to stuff me with candy!). But really, it makes me feel hugged and supported and loved, and more than that–it makes me feel special. It's nice to feel special. Most of the time I feel kinda tired and sometimes my feet ache. But my fairy godmother makes me feel like I have glitter running through my veins. Thank you, friend, whoever you are. I hug you SO hard.
I would actually recommend that you to not ask yourself if it is good but if you like it. Did you capture that thing that made you want to draw it in the first place?
As an artist, we are often trying to recreate an intangible which means something may look funny to someone else when, really, we we were trying to capture a kind of emotion or ellicit an emotion.
You may find your sketching more rewarding and joyous.
You inspire me, Rachael. Not only are you brave in attempting to push yourself to try new things, you are braver in your willingness to expose yourself and your art. So many of us may be lucky enough to find the courage to try something out of our comfort zone, but fewer will be willing to share that with other people. In doing so, you make us feel that it’s okay to just go for it. To share it. That it is what it is … be it great, good, bad or indifferent. You are extremely artistic and it shows in your writing, your knitting and your drawings. Here’s the thing though… you make me think that I can do it too. For that, I thank you. As I said, you inspire me!
Every night just before I turn out the light I do a little free write, by hand in a notebook, using that day’s page of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Page-a-Day calendar and every morning I post it near the bottom of my blog entry. I try not to judge the writing or make excuses but sometimes, especially when I’ve lost focus or life is too busy for me to really concentrate on writing, I think if I stopped doing that nightly prompt writing I’d stop writing for good, and that would be a tragedy. I’d miss it.
I think that since athletes train to improve and musicians practice, it only makes sense that writers need to write to beef up their writing muscles. It’s naive to think that because you physically know how to write in your language that what you slap onto a piece of paper will be any good at all unless you practice. Regularly pave those neural pathways with the good, bad, awkward, disgusting, terrible, and ugly and pretty soon you’ll be better at whatever it is. Trust me.
Good luck at NaNoWriMo this year, Rachael. I’m thinking of using the 30 days of focus as an opportunity to complete Rewrite #5 of my manuscript. Unlike you, I like writing the first draft much better than all the succeeding ones.
Rachael, I am so excited for this I can’t even tell you. This is a great exercise, and HELL YES it is hard work and often the rewards are few, if your expected reward is a “good” drawing. I post all of the pages from my various sketchbooks on twitter (which I’m sure you’ve seen) partly as an exercise in not being precious about the act of drawing, and in being TOTALLY OKAY with things going out into the world that aren’t polished and perfect and sometimes are just utter shit. Doing my part to make the world understand that artists (writers, etc) aren’t touched by some deity and made able to whip out masterpieces without breaking a sweat.
Glitter in your veins….LOVE THIS!
Have you read Drawing on the Right Side of Your Brain? It shows adult student’s first day of class self portrait. It’s the expected kid type scrawls.Then you see what their portraits look like 7 classes later!! Professional quality. Astounding. Great exercises and lessons on understanding HOW our brain interprets what our eyes see.
I’m going to check out the Zen book. Thanks for the recommendation.
I love this idea… might have to do it myself too! I had a daily sketching habit for a while, and it definitely gets smoother as you go. You get more comfortable with laying down a sketch without worrying about it, and the lines open up and get more expressive. I love your Clementines – you’ve really captured something about how she moves in the world. It’s just like writing I guess – first you just do it, and make sure you keep doing it.