Recently I have been struggling to get back into drawing. I am listening to that inner voice that says “you’re drawings will be rubbish” so I end up avoiding it or thinking perhaps I have forgotten how to draw or felt under pressure to share it all. So how do you start to draw when you think you can’t? I’ve been practicing what I teach and getting on with some warm-up drawing exercises, such as drawing without looking at the page, drawing with my other hand (the one I don’t normally draw with), drawing with scissors and more.
Some of the drawings I am happy with – others were dreadful, but that is all part of the warming-up process. I tend to start drawing quickly, giving only 30 seconds or a minute to draw as I find this stops me from overthinking. In fact, I often prefer these fast sketchy drawings to ones that I have laboured over. I’ve also given myself permission to keep some of my drawing practice just for me, so I have chosen not to share it all. The pressure of social media can in itself be part of the problem when you want to start to draw, whether from comparing yourself to others or feeling that it should be shareable. I even went so far as to limit how long I could spend on social media each day and I have definitely done a lot more drawing!
It’s good to remind myself that it’s Ok to get stuck, and that I have the tools and techniques at hand to get me out of that mindset that I can’t do it. It’s also OK that some of the drawings are not that great, I know that I often have to go through this first – they are all part of the process, sometimes the bad drawings have to come out before the better ones arrive.
