Daily Sketching.
Back Trouble.
Recently I suffered an injury to my back which meant that I had to take a break from my daily routine of running.
My morning routine used to be; wake up, put on running gear, have a cup of tea, go for a 40-minute run, shower and take my book to the local café and read for half an hour or so, then return back to my home office and begin the days' work.
The pandemic stopped the café-reading, and my back pain stopped the daily run. The only thing that didn't change was waking up, without an alarm, at about 5:30 every day. So, what's a person to do? This is how I used to start my day, which meant that I had time exclusively for myself, almost like meditation. In fact, this was my meditation. Running is probably the best way I've found to get ideas. There's something about engaging the body that allows the mind to relax and roam freely.
Routine is the best route to flexibility and probably creativity. With the structure of a routine, particularly a morning routine, you have the scaffolding for anything you want to build. Making things into habits that you want, like rituals, frees the mind to concentrate on things that need full conscious attention rather than allowing thoughts to circulate randomly, interrupting your focus.
You have to turn up and "do the reps" if you want to improve any skill. However, "doing the reps" also gives you the structure on which to build anything.
New Routine.
So, I made a new routine; the night before, prepare my rucksack with a sketchbook, my pens and glasses that allow me to see over the top of them; wake up as usual at 5:30, have a cup of tea, read for half an hour, shower, dress and leave the house by 7:00 to walk and find a spot to sketch. Sketch for 30 minutes, grab a coffee from a local café, return home and into the office by about 9:00. Absolute bliss.
I had forgotten how much I enjoyed sketching and had always promised myself that I would spend more time doing it when I got older. I want to get myself to the stage where drawing itself become effortless. Then I can concentrate on developing my own style. But, there are other benefits too.
Physicality and Flow.
Drawing with a pencil or pen in your hand is a physical and mental activity. You need fine motor skills and the ability to translate visual information into line or tone on paper. Like writing by hand, which I also love to do, the physicality of drawing is extremely important for the mental process and the learning process. You can imagine drawing, but you'll never engage fully unless you actually do it. Likewise, you wouldn't expect to become a virtuoso violinist or an elite athlete if you didn't practice regularly and deliberately.
There must be a powerful connection between our motor skills, our learning skills and our imaginations. I've tried sketching on my iPad, and I just can't get the feeling, or the concentration, that I can get with a pen or pencil on paper.
When it really works, when seeing and sketching come together, all-time disappears, and you move "into the zone", what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls a "Flow state". A state where you push your skill level just a little beyond your present status and push your comfort level a to a little stressed (but not too much) so that you are stretching your capability.
Drawing from Life.
Drawing from photos or copying images can be highly beneficial, but you get the most out of anything when you do it for real, in real-time. That's why drawing on location or from life is so important.
Looking at something is messy and complex; we tend not to "see" what we're looking at because we see what we think we know. One of the most common difficulties with drawing is knowing too much. We assume we know what something is like and try to interpret it accordingly. Rather than looking at the relationships between objects and shapes, we overlay knowledge and assumptions irrespective of our expectations. So, we draw a face according to how we think it should be, rather than how it is.
Incoming sensory information, particularly visual information, is messy. Our eyes are darting about, and our brains work hard to make sense of what is seen. All incoming information, be it visual, auditory, sensory, is merely a sequence of tiny electrical impulses, passing along a series of conductors which the brain interprets as meaning something (or not). When sketching "en Plein Air," we engage not only incoming information but also, at the same time (actually very slightly later), send signals to our bodies. Rather than ingesting and interpreting, we also build physical knowledge and engage with the subject in front of us. Whole-body and mind engagement. No wonder it feels good!
Learning to See.
It may seem strange to say, but drawing on location or life means learning to see again. Most of the time, we tend to look and not really see. We have old eyes rather than fresh new eyes. We use everything we already know (or think we know) to ignore most of what we see.
If there was a straightforward definition of creativity, it would be seeing something familiar as non-familiar. To view something as if for the first time, without assumptions. Getting rid of assumptions is, of course, impossible. We need assumptions to be able to function effectively in the world. Assumptions and habits save us time and precious mental energy.
Being able to recognise assumptions is the first step to building a new skill of seeing afresh. In drawing, as when I started my daily sketching routine, it's easier to sketch the way I have always sketched. That may mean not really having to look at the subject, except to roughly set the main shapes and perspective. I can "assume" because I've done this before, and it's comfortable and within my skill-set. But that doesn't move me closer to fully "seeing" the subject and engaging with it. I have to move a little beyond my skill and a little beyond my comfort zone. Not too far beyond, because that's where disappointment lives, and not too close, because that's where boredom lives. A Goldilocks zone.
There are two interesting exercises described in Betty Edward's book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain". The first is turning the subject (if you're drawing from an image) upside-down. This forces you not to look at what you know (particularly if it's a figure you're drawing) but to look at the shapes and relationships of lines. The results from this are often amazing!
The second exercise is to draw contours without looking at the paper or your hand, allowing your eyes to trace the contour and your hand on the paper to trace the same. This exercise, which if you haven't tried you should) is incredibly powerful in teaching hand-eye coordination and the simple act of seeing, not looking. Both these exercises are extremely useful for changing the way you engage with the subject.
Drawing Goals.
The great thing about having a passion is that it allows you to set goals with ease. With a goal, I can find purpose and meaning in what I am doing. Although it may look as though I'm just doing this to pass the time and for the pleasure of drawing, whilst that's partially true, it's not the whole story.
I am curious to see whether, by sketching every day, I will change the ease by looking at a complex subject and simplifying it. Not just in drawing it, but also in understanding it.
I am curious to see how I feel with a more practised skill. In the past, I have always sketched for a specific purpose, like planning an interior or explaining an idea. I want to apply Deliberate Practice's principles to see if I can reach a level of mastery. If I can get there, what will it mean to master a skill? If it's anything like a violinist or elite athlete, I would think that there is a lot of seemingly fruitless practice that will yield a result only if I am sufficiently self-critical and sufficiently directional in my approach.
The trick is to balance focus, concentration and fixedness with flexibility. This, I think, will only come with practice.
As competence and skills develop, I will need to be wary of finding a style that simply works and sticking to it (although there is a great deal of pleasure in that too).
When Picasso said, "Every child is an artist, the problem is how to remain an artist when we grow up", I think he meant that children see things in a new and fresh way, and we tend to lose that when we learn a skill and build our assumptions. His great strength was to never get stuck in a style and to always see the familiar afresh. Error is just as valid as success if you use it to learn.
My objective in setting a goal is not the goal in and of itself, but for the plan to drag me forward and in the process to change how I see things and communicate what I see to others.
The Plan.
1. I've completed my first 30-day project, which was to draw every morning on location or from life. I know now that I can do this, and it's enjoyable. Being enjoyable is an essential part of making this a habit that will stick easily.
2. 30 days sketching, exploring line, shape and contour and building skill and fluidity so that the act of drawing is something I don't have to think about. I want to try to make it automatic. For the moment, I will stick with an architectural subject (that's easier during the pandemic) and add in sketching people in the second half of the month.
3. 30 days experimenting with different mediums and methods. I want to try to find a way to challenge the way I sketch and enrich my arsenal.
4. 30 days playing with colour. I've always been very weak in my use of colour and have shied away from it. If I'm sufficiently confident in my sketching, then I will need to add colour.
5. After 120 days, I should be up-to-speed. It should be time to set a new goal.
"You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of success is found in your daily routine."
Darren Hardy.
If anyone would like to join me on this journey,
I will try to post every day on Instagram and Pinterest
https://www.instagram.com/charlesleon917
(https://www.pinterest.co.uk/charlieleon
It would be fun to do this with other like-minded people. You can contact me at charles@charlesleon.uk