art for all

34. Living well through bad drawings

May 31, 2021 Danny Gregory Season 2 Episode 34
art for all
34. Living well through bad drawings
Show Notes Transcript

Your sketchbook can enrich your life in so many ways.  And making great drawings isn't necessarily one of them. 



Welcome to art for all at sketchbook school podcast. I'm your host, Danny Gregory. I'm the author of over a dozen or so books on art and creativity. And I'm a sketchbook artist. I keep my life in an illustrated journal. When some people see in illustrator journal, they say, wow, that's great. I could never do that. And with some coking, they may be persuaded to give it a try anyway, and others say, wow, I'm going to do that. And they start to, and quite a few say, when do you find the time? And then they use your journal as a coaster. It's comparatively easy to start to bring yourself, to draw your breakfast once or your coffee cup once. And to keep it up for a couple of days. Ideally, those first few days infect you with the fever, the passion, and you're compelled to carry a long series of journal books around with you for the rest of your days, but more likely your initial enthusiasm. Well, Wayne, you'll forget to do it one day and then he'll give into resistance the next and yeah, you'll feel like you've broken the chain. The narrative is lost a month's gone by and yeah, you drop it all together. Why? Well, often it's because you're disappointed with your drawings. You may say you don't have the time, you forgot your book, you grew bored, but it's really because you aren't that impressed with your drawing skills. You haven't made something that looks like art. Now. I don't think that illustrated journaling is really about doing great drawings. You're not out to make something that you could frame or give as a Christmas present. I'm not really that into doing the sort of exercises on perspective and tone and all that stuff that you see in most drawing books, exercise that will move your skills to another level artistically. Not that you shouldn't do those if, if they're fun or if you have some other goal in mind. But I don't really think that they're essential for the true purpose of illustrated journaling. And what is that purpose it's to celebrate your life? No matter how small or mundane or redundant each drawing in each little essay, you write to commemorate an event or an object or a place makes it all the more special. Celebrate your hairbrush and it'll make you appreciate the intricacies of the bristles, the miracle of your lost hair. The beauty of you, it sounds sappy, but it's in there. Draw your lunch and it'll be a very different experience from bolting down another tuna on rye. If you take your time and we're just talking maybe 10 or 20 minutes here, folks. And he really studied that sandwich, the nooks and valleys, the Kremlin of the lettuce, that the textures of the tuna you'll do a drawing that recognize the particularities of that sandwich. That's the point to record this particular moment, this sandwich, not something generic. If you approach it with that attitude. You'll create something as unique and reaching that place is just a matter of concentration and attention. Okay. Bit of meditation, and you will have a souvenir to jog your memory back to that moment. Forevermore. Imagine if you can keep doing that. Keep dropping these little gems every day. Imagine if you can keep doing that, keep dropping these little gems in your day, recognizing the incredible gift that you're given each morning upon awakening. You'll be a millionaire. Now there's a demon in your mind that will fight this. That will tell you that your, your life is unworthy of acknowledgement and celebration that the today sucks through and through. It'll tell you, you have no time for this, that. You're too harried. You're too stressed. You got too many things on your to do list. And that brings me to Mary Beth, who wrote to me from Nebraska, where she had just had emergency eye surgery. And for two weeks she could only see the floor and she wasn't sidelined. She drew all of her visitors feet. She pulled art out of that tragedy. She celebrated her visitors. She created a positive memory that you will have to cherish long after her vision is back to normal. Her nightmare became a lesson and celebration of what she still had. Look, I've gone through my fair share of crap. And my regret is that I didn't celebrate all of it. I can't see it often enough. Life is short. Art is long. Get the habit. Thanks for joining me today. I'll create something new for you again next week until then I'm Danny Gregory. And this is art.