I Can’t Draw
Part of the reason I took the long weekend, besides it’s my birthday and I wanted the time free, was I wanted to try and get re-acquainted with my drawing table. But all weekend long so far I haven’t even been able to look at it.
I can’t draw. But it wouldn’t be correct to say that I’m blocked. My head is full of ideas for cartoons and other artwork. I just don’t want to sit down to the drafting table and pull it out of me. I don’t want to go there. Inside. Where the drawing comes from.
I ran away from it for almost fifteen years, from the mid-1980s to 2001, when I started posting my political cartoons here for the first time. What I found when I picked up pencil and pen again after so long was I’d lost a lot of it. It was a struggle to get it back. But then I got better. Better then I’d ever been. I’m starting to be afraid now that I’m headed for another dry period. And it’s not dry in the sense that I have nothing to put down on paper. I have lots to put down on paper. Tons. But…I don’t want to any more. It just seems so pointless now…
I remember back in the 1980s…which were a terrible period of time in my life…first the interest in drawing and painting went away, then my interest in photography. Eventually all my creative interests just…stopped. That was the period I took up computer programming, which eventually led to a whole new career and lots more money then I’d ever dreamed of making. So you could argue that it was a net gain. But it wasn’t. It was deathly cold and horrible. That’s where I’m headed. Again. It looks like.
September 15th, 2008 at 3:03 am
You always seem to me to be a very visually oriented person. And your art (As far as I know) is all about the visual. Yet you also appreciate music.
So why not go buy a guitar? Or…wll, somehow I don’t really see you as a guitar type. But maybe a Clarinette? Or a piano/keyboard? You can go pick up a halfway decent electronic keyboard (with 99 sounds!) for $100 bucks (And on up, as much as you want to spend, of course) Then sit yourself down for at least an hour a day and learn to play it. Theres a ton of books out there for learning it on your own. Yes, start with ‘Mary had a little lamb’ and then go from there to the Brahms and Bach. And if after a couple of months you just arn’t digging it, try a different instrument.
OR, somehow for you I think that getting a REAL synthisizer might be fun. You don’t *NEED* to know how to play it, but you can geek out for decades on the controls and waves and functions. (But maybe thats just me? I’ve built a couple of my own synths, and spent days and days just geeking out on them….WITHOUT a keyboard!) There is a real cathartic kind of trance state I can get into by doing that. And for brief moments, I actually understand MATH when I’m doing it!
Or try this for a trip: Go take some music/keyboard lessons!
Want to cause havoc and make enemies of your neighbors? Take up BAGPIPES! THAT will make life interesting! Maybe not pleasent, but interesting.
OR….heres a real trip of an idea for you: You made that "Grandfather" remark. SO, how about becoming a foster parent of some sort? Maybe a Torch Song Trillogy type of situation? Find some Queer kid that’s been cast out of his home and family, and take him/her in and be a parent to him/her.I *KNOW* you have the heart and soul for that…..but maybe not the long-term patients.
Or maybe easier would be raising and training helper monkeys?
On the other hand, it is perfectly OK to have a "Dry spell".
Maybe get a 4X6 pad of paper, and just do 5 minute cartoon sketches. The challenge is to just do a simple cartoon in under 5 minutes, at least one a day.
Practice NOT being perfect and refining about it.
September 15th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
I actually tried learning several musical instruments over the course of my life, starting with the Wurlitzer my folks brought into the apartment back when I was still in elementary school. Didn’t work out. Neither did the guitars or the flute. The problem is I just can’t hold a beat for the life of me. And anyway…I don’t "think" music. As you said, I am a very visually oriented person. You can see it even in my writing.
I’m hoping this will pass on by before winter sets too deeply in. I’ve actually thought about just random sketching, and for a while I was doing that. You saw my pirate didn’t you? He’s still sitting around on the drawing board in the pencil stage.
September 16th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
"Still sitting around on my drawing board"…..see, thats the OPPOSITE of what I am talking about.
Just get a pad and your favorite pen, just ONE pen. And no penciling in, no erasing, none of that. Just point-blank sketching. 5 minutes from start to finish. Then either toss it in the trash, or better, save them all in some sort of scrap book, or a shoe box.
Maybe a 5 minute "study" of a leaf, or some guys butt, or an alien. Just whatever! You don’t have to sit and think for 2 hours about what your 5 minute cartoon is going to be. In fact, DON’T think about it at all! You could pretend its a word association type thing, just whatever thought pops into your head, and no censoring. If its stick figures, then its stick figures. If its an eyeball, then its an eye ball.
Or log into myspace, or any given website (News, tech, social network whatever) and whatever is the top story (Or 3rd one down) or post, just sketch the main idea that comes to mind, even (And maybe especially) if it has nothing to do with the topic.
Don’t think, do.
Rythem is not a requirement for music. I have no sense of it either, nor any talent, I refuse to let that stop me!