Welcome to Draw Anyway
*Cough* Anyone there?
Welcome to drawanyway, a blog that aims to encourage you to put pen to paper. If you have always felt you can’t draw, or if you just don’t have the time to draw, you’re especially welcome.
I’ve tried to explain a bit about my reasons for not drawing here - these days, it boils down to being a mother and holding down a full-time job, plus a bit of freelance work. And I’m launching a new blog - hmm. Clever.
My motivation for this is that together, I reckon we’ll do more drawing. I may not be a big-shot artist, but I think I know enough to get beginners making work they are pleased with.
If you’re not a beginner, but wish you drew more, I’m aiming for a supportive, friendly environment that’ll make you want to draw and share your pictures. As well as pictures, perhaps you’ll add your theories, thoughts and advice - after all, I’m not trying to set up the Draw Anyway academy of drawing here. Some debate would be very welcome.
I’ll also be suggesting tasks - daily ideas, none of which should take more than ten minutes.
At the beginning of a new project, it’s impossible to tell how it will end up, so perhaps your guess is as good as mine. As with all blogs, it’ll be partly - mostly - what you, the visitors, make it. So I’ll shut up about that now, and ask you to kick things off by answering a simple question for me: Why don’t you draw?
Interpret that how you will (and if the answer is ‘I do’, that’s fine too). I’m hoping your answers will help me pitch upcoming posts; I’ll keep this thread open for the foreseeable future, and any new visitor is welcome to keep the replies coming.
Posted: May 29th, 2007 under About drawanyway, You.
Comments: 17
17 Comments
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I don’t draw, but I doodle incessantly. I suppose it’s because it’s something I do to avoid doing something else, not something I do for its own sake.
I also lack inspiration. My children ask me to draw things, and I do, to a standard that makes me happy, but I don’t ever sit in front of a blank piece of paper and think ‘hmmm, what can I draw today’. So to be given a task is for me an extremely useful nudge.
I also have a very strong block about drawing from my imagination - I have a reasonable eye, and can copy or draw from life, but don’t seem to be able to translate the images I keep in my head into actual drawings.
Very interesting.
Off the top of my head, I reckon drawing from the imagination comes from having drawn from the eye enough to have kept a ‘memory’ of the kinds of shapes and lines used. Each time you draw something, it’s a kind of reinforcement of that. Even when it goes wrong, that’s still a learning. Erm, basic message - the more you draw, the more skilled you get.
I don’t draw because I never remember that I want to. Tamsin lent me Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain ages ago (must ask her if she wants it back) and I keep forgetting that I’ve got it. I think Draw Anyway will probably work better for me in any case, since there’s going to be a community behind it to encourage me not to forget :)
I agree - Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is a superb book for people who really don’t think they can draw. No doubt I will be posting about it at some point.
I’m really interested to see people’s drawings now.
I’ve stuck in an Amazon ad for the book on the right, and it’s making me laugh because it’s coming up as ‘Drawing on the Right Side of the Bra’ - which is a whole different area to explore, I reckon.
I don’t draw for several of the same reasons you have mentioned yourself. I can never live up to my own expectations. I’m never going to be as good as I want to be, never going to be as good as those giants I studied in art school, never going to satisfied. I stop 3/4 of the way through something because it’s not coming out as I’d like and I get frustrated.
Also? I seem to have developed this mid-life ADD. Much of the time life is so stressful and fast paced and over scheduled that when I actually *do* have the time to draw I get antsy, like I should be doing something else. I think this is why photography has overshadowed drawing as a creative outlet for me lately, because I like the quickness to compose and snap, the instant gratification of digital media.
Boy, do I identify with this. Well, why else would I have had the idea for ten minute art tasks, I suppose. Mid-life ADD, perfect description.
Similarly, I doodle all of the time (any piece of paper that spends much time near me is testament to that) but I rarely consider it to be “drawing” as such… I don’t really think I can draw, and I am embarrassed by the difference between what I see (in reality or in my mind’s eye) and what I actually produce. Additionally, I associate Drawing (with a capital D) as a lengthy process involving lots of time and nice paper and good pencils and whatnot: it’s rarely the kind of activity that occurs to me when I sit down with 10 minutes to spare.
Perfect reply - I understand this so well! So I hope I can provide some inspiration.
I’m one of those people who can’t draw, even for their two-year-old. I had maps torn out of my Geography homework because I can’t even colour in properly. But my mum was the same and she learned to draw and paint in the last five years of her life, so perhaps I ought to give it a try too.
You so can!!!
I want to find your Geography teacher and have a stern word with him or her, now. I do remember being similarly chastised for not using a ruler in my Physics and Chemistry diagrams. Rulers, pah.
Your mum is a superb example that you can learn at any age, though.
because i am lazy! :)
In my family my sister is the artist and I’m the writer. Any time I’ve taken an art class it’s only been because it’s been mandatory and the strict rules of the projects really turned me off.
The only time drawing or art work of any kind was fun was when I did it by myself for myself. I used to doodle and collage a lot in my journals when I was in my early ’20’s. In those days of course I was usually stoned and should have been doing my homework instead.
I don’t draw as often as I’d like because I’m kind of lazy and very much a procrastinator (er?). I like drawing, but usually end up telling myself I’ll do some later until it’s bedtime. I need to change this.
Great! Then the daily structure here might help you. Might!
I don’t draw because I have something else to do, because I have forgotten to bring pen and/or paper with me, because every line I draw seems to absolutely wrong, because the same inane things keep on coming out of my pencils. And because I’ve got a headache, damn it!
Poor you. But the rest of the time, you do draw, which is a real inspiration to me.