Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been drawing almost everyday. Not in a sketchbook, like I’m used to, but digitally. I’ve never felt that drawing digitally was drawing at all, it often felt like a different thing. But now, I’m finding that whilst it does feel different; it’s doing the same thing to my brain. The more I draw, the more I write. The more I write, the more ideas I generate. The more ideas I generate, the more I need to visualise them – it’s a self-fuelling loop and one that is nourished by the same activity of drawing whether using traditional or digital techniques.
Building muscles
No one expects me to run a marathon if I can’t even run 5km but when it comes to art, do we also need to build muscle?
It’s never felt more like work
Should picture book making feel like work? Or should it feel like some utopia where someone pays me for ‘art’?
Rendering the invisible
Perhaps the role of an artist is to render the invisible so we become more attentive to the world as it is?
The preparation ritual
Can a piece of paper create more connection than a wifi-enabled digital device when it comes to art?
The other side of loss is opportunity
Loss is difficult; we often like what we had more than what we may have. But how do we know unless we make space for the new in our lives?