me-drawing-recently
Likes and dislikes of months with Drawing. What's with the fear of ‘ruining a drawing’?
Hello readers,
Welcome again to digging a hole. sharing creative processes and research. If you’re new to this strain of branches, feel free to check out edition 01 that ire wrote some time ago. This time, Szy is sharing some brisk reflections on drawing.
It was hard/interesting/complicated to write this because…
I see drawing as making mental notes to myself and marking a time. I’m most satisfied when I engage in drawing, illustration, or painting on a daily basis. Happily, a bunch of our closest friends have a close connection to these practices too so I’m often reminded of its potential.
Drawing tools
On my birthday (which was in February) I got an iPad, a tool I generally dislike, it’s kind of a dad thing, isn’t it?, apart from one thing that makes all these connotations go away—you can draw on it. With a smart pen you can even achieve a different character of the line depending on the amount of pressure you put on the glass or the angle you draw with. The desire for an iPad as a drawing tool started when I’d see illustrators document their drawing processes and they’d always have the same interface on their iPads: two transparent sliders on the left, three or four icons on the top. Upon further research I found it was an app called Procreate, that I think most illustrators are playing with right now.
Generally, I draw in my sketchbook, on loose papers, on the tablet, and on cotton canvas (occasionally on found objects such as strange clay-hay bundles - see image below.)
Over the last few days I’ve been excited about acrylic paints (looooooove dragging almost dry layer of paint on top of a fresh one) but something is boiling in me to try to mix more things together. I feel no need to focus particularly on one or other medium. I go as I please and I don’t carry around strict definitions or categories. I do have one tendency that keeps returning: it’s a fear of ‘ruining a drawing’ — it happens when I start liking what I see happening on the canvas and I begin feeling paralysed about acting further in order not to squash the enthusiasm.
Likes
Easiness of tossing around thoughts,
You don’t have to be specific
Spontaneity, quicker works, or being quick
A gift of a slowness in time, building new vocabularies
Drawing open-air
Building trust in my own intuition, and that if things are not working out take a break, let the time pass
Being closer to people you have never met, by slowly and loosely thinking about their work, opinions, their ways of being; it’s all imaginary and assumption-based but i find it valuable
Drawing/seeing yourself however you want; dresses, limbs, spaces;
Misbehaving
Going through your experiences, learning how you feel by working it out on paper/screen
Nuances can do so much: “small bulges, tight squeezes or off-kilter gestures” (Aki Hassan) link
Dislikes
Zooming in completely, forgetting about the body, hydrating, stretching, temperature; often pain in the eyes and it’s hard to regain focus
Mood destroyed when it’s not working out
not much pop culture elements or recognizable imagery in anything i do
Others and drawing
My grandma on a call yesterday asked me what I’m doing (at that moment, not in life in general) and I said I’m drawing. I wonder what is the image in her head of me drawing.
On our visit to our friends in France, I first got my hands on the publications from Bored Wolves—highly illustrated, pocket format and filled with poetry—really beautifully crafted things. These books, an aura of our friends’ home (french cottage much) deepened all the feelings for drawing. We’ve been following them since and we hope to collect some of their publications on the way (maybe meet once?!). Bored Wolves is a duo too. Below their substack.
I don’t know,
I don’t know what people,
I don’t know what people are drawing, in their notebooks, margins of things, but there must be SO MUCH OF IT.
I’ll always be more drawn towards these spaces rather than galleries or Hermès advertisements.
I actually did some research on the career’s of illustrators and I’ve noticed a pattern. Once an illustrator gathers a following, they end up doing something for the New York Times, or Hermès, and after that, all that’s left for them is to puzzle over how their illustration can become a public sculpture.
I still want to apply for an illustrator’s portfolio review organised by The New York Times though.
Wobbly drawing and sharing
Beginning of May I asked ire if we could have another isz szi newsletter for sending drawings every day. We both quickly got very excited about it and that’s how wobbly drawing was born. I wanted some place to share what I do every day and was also prompted by the rules of alphabet superset [link] which asks of you to share weekly, no excuses. So far it’s been working well, although it’s becoming more confrontational these days. Ire says it’s the third week thing.
How does drawing connect to my work as a graphic designer?
It used to connect more before I started drawing more. Also I’m doing less and less design work/artworks these days. Below I include an example of an artwork I had done taking some drawings of mine as a starting point.
Actually I feel like I don’t have a desire for the design practice and the drawing to connect, I'd choose being an artist over an illustrator, having less of a service, working with a brief mindset. I’m discovering that I’m not good at arriving at anything close to the original plan.
Dreams
Apply for an illustration portfolio review
Have a drawing correspondence of sorts
Find more spaces and writing on drawing, people relationships to it,
Ire said something that would be kind of a dream come true, but before i even had this dream: that he wants to take some of my drawings and use them for making the carpets/rugs
Dreams are a good place end I think. You can find me looking at the works of:
Salman Toor, Aaron Fernandez (illustration below), Aleksandra Waliszewska, Alicja Biała (who was filling a building with wall paintings during the pandemic), Cecile McLorin Salvant’s drawings, Melek Zeral’s comics books, Aki Hassan.
Take care of each other,
Szy