scoab (1.4)
When I really started drawing, I decided that using a ruler was cheating. If you didn’t draw the line, then it wasn’t your line. So I learned how to make straight lines and while they weren’t perfectly straight, they were mine.
A year or so after I made that decision, I met a guy who only drew in ink. Now that was art. You were responsible for every line. No erasing. No undo. If it was a small mistake, you could work around it, or through it, or make something else and suddenly you were going that way anyway. If the mistake was bad enough, you could always start over. So I learned how to draw in ink and leave childish things like pencils and pink rubber erasers behind.
Flash forward 20 years, and suddenly I’m a huge cheater. Nothing in this drawing really exists. They’re just pixels of varying intensity, pushed into existence by a fake pen on fake paper. The tip of the drawing pen is even felt-like enough to give the right amount of resistance on the tablet. Fake.
The thing is, working this way is more like what I used to do than what I’ve been pushing out lately. I feel more involved in the act of drawing. I forgot that when I really get into the art, I’m in it. I don’t hear music. I don’t know the air conditioner gave up 20 minutes ago and my feet are sticking to my sandals. I’m building the picture in my head, with tools that my younger self wouldn’t have thought of.
He would still think I’m cheating.
But I’ll be ready for him when he comes back.
November 8th, 2007 at 11:11 am
Me personally, I only draw in crayon.
Anything else is cheating.
Mind you… Scraping it off my monitor can be a hassle.
November 24th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Interesting anecdote, James. Maybe it took 20 years for your mind to catch up with your talent. A prolonged period of maturation. It makes me think of G.K. Chesterton’s interesting depiction of life: that it’s a huge spiral, and with the passage of time so our life gyrates, ever wider and higher than the previous circle, so that we can draw upon past experiences while yet moving ever higher and wider as time adds to our life, enriching it, expanding our consciousness, our being.
Sorry for the weirdness. It’s involuntary, like breath. The point is that you have a kick-ass talent, even if it’s ‘fake.’ Oh, and has anyone ever told you that you write well? It’s awesome to be able to read something without flinching in horror at the unholy breaches in grammar. Really.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
November 7th…
Dude, if he comes back after all this time, he won’t call you a cheater,
He’ll shout at you to update your page!
:p
Sincerely,
The Overfiend
July 12th, 2008 at 7:27 am
Agreed to all of the above and how the hell are you?