Drawing Fundamentals

Sharing the process of learning new art techniques.

( 4 ) DRAWING FUNDAMENTALS

Today, I’m finally back at my studio and returning to work after spending a couple weeks fighting the horrible flu that’s been going around. Of course I caught it on Christmas Eve, of all days. With that, came a bit of seasonal depression, struggling to find motivation while it seemed like the rest of the world was moving forward with goals and resolutions, as they do. Somehow, I still found the energy to make my annual vision board for the year, which focused mainly on learning new art techniques (drawing, weaving, knitting, film photography etc.) but in some ways, it still felt small and insignificant. As a self-taught artist, I’ve always carried an insecurity about the fundamentals, even though I’ve spent the past ten years deeply studying, watching every tutorial I could find, taking online courses, trying, and failing, until I learned what I needed to know to make what I wanted to make.

In our current society, we have access to so much information, it seems we can learn almost any skill but it’s during the making and after the failure when artists can oftentimes learn the most. Either way, my lack of art school education has always weighed on me and I regularly find myself looking up information on MFA programs, often as a distraction more than anything else. In all honesty, I am someone who loves learning and has a deep respect for education and academia as a whole. Odds are, I will probably go back to school for art at some point, simply because I know I would love it. Although for now, in this moment of reality, I seem to be in what feels like a creative abyss, with an endless stream of endeavors I’d like to try, yet a lack of energy to do them. How can I choose one discipline or focus, when I feel like they all inform each other? This is something I’ve yet to answer in life but if there’s any goal I do have for this year, it’s to wake up every morning and either write or draw, in order to access the flow state faster and make progress on an art project each day.

To start, I have chosen to focus on the discipline of drawing. Any time I’m feeling a lack of artistic expression in my life, I find myself going back to the basics of it all, with just a pencil and blank sheet of paper. This clears my mind more than any other form of art and the more I learn about the brain, the more I realize how healing and powerful drawing can be. Last year, I read the book “Your Brain on Art” and actually reread several chapters multiple times because I found the benefits of art and aesthetics in the brain to be so fascinating. We even held a full community discussion on the book with the artists who were part of the Artist Program last fall, so we could continue the conversation and apply it to our individual art practices. I particularly found the way drawing relieves stress and supports mental health to be truly profound.

I’ve also noticed when I start any branding project, sketching is so important in order to make something completely original and different for each client. You truly never know where your brain will take you when you begin sketching out shapes and only our human minds can come up with those kinds of unique ideas. I believe the best work I’ve created in my design career thus far began with drawing, even if it was just a rough scribbly doodle, and I’m hoping that learning more techniques will take all my client work to the next level this year, along with contributing to this personal project — Spiral.

Furthermore, I felt the best way to begin my year of learning new techniques would be through drawing, starting this week, then leading into a full drawing workshop next week, called “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain”. The first assignment they’ve given us is to begin with a self-portrait before the workshops starts. I’ve actually never drawn myself in this way before, at least from what I can remember but it’s been an interesting experience so far to study my own features in a mirror. It’s strange, yet surprisingly emotional. So far, I’m realizing that each individual feature seems easier to draw but making the full face proportions as a whole is more difficult.

Like I mentioned before, I’ve never taken a drawing class or learned the “right” way to draw. I’ve always just kept drawing and erasing until it “felt right". I guess that feeling is what has always led my art practice. Another influence that I’ll note is my mother. When I was younger, I found a series of portraits she drew in the attic of her childhood home. They were beautiful and she captured the essence of people so well. She was and is a naturally gifted artist, whether she recognizes it or not, and even went to art school for a short while but ended up dropping out to pursue a teaching career instead. Growing up, I remember her drawing large animals on her chalkboard in her classroom for her kindergarten students that were so life-like and detailed. I think watching her draw on the board must have influenced me in some way and I do remember one piece of advice she gave that stuck with me when she said, “it’s all in the eyes”. Now that I’m trying to draw myself, I’ve spent the most time on my eyes, trying to get them right, knowing when they are, I will feel it.

As of now, I don’t personally think any of these variations actually look like me yet and instead resemble some other mystery woman but in an effort to share my work more, here’s my very first rough drafts and I hope to have more complete versions by the end of the drawing workshop next week. In the meantime, I hope you find pockets of inspiration as we all go back to work and find time to enter the flow state each day. Your brain will thank you.

With wonder,

Darcy