Even though I haven’t been posting much lately here on RozWoundUp I have been busy posting on my Patreon site, and continuing my culling of books from my library, completing and lining up work projects, and of course cooking, cooking, cooking. I’ll have more to say about the cooking on another day, but today I sat down and thought I’d catch up on some of the posts I wanted to share with you and opened this first file, which was to be posted last month—and the images were drawn exactly one year ago. I think that’s so funny. I have to smile.
What I originally intended to write about these pages I’m not sure. I think I was going to write about doing contour and gesture drawings.
That makes sense. I see the contours and end with the gestures (image one).
But I also wanted to say something about not worrying about “perfect.”
Looking at these two spreads I remember exactly how I was feeling when I was sketching these. And the fact that none of the sketches are perfect doesn’t bother me in the least.
I see in each one, information that I have learned, lines that I have achieved, angles that I did get right. They tell me that I’m going in the right direction. They remind me that in the muddle of 3-dimensionality transferred to 2-dimensions I can work it out, and quickly. (Quickly matters to me because of my background which you can read about on the blog, but if it doesn’t matter to you, don’t worry, you can have fun working at whatever speed you work at.)
I also remember how this thin-tipped pen felt going over the delightfully pebbly surface of the OLD Gutenberg paper.
The sketch I finished at 4 p.m. (first page posted here is actually the third page drawn, shows Morey Amsterdam in profile) reminds me that I can get the right angles and the right scale after I’ve done my warm up. (It also reminds me how much I love the texture of this paper which breaks up the ink line when applied with light pressure.)
It reminds me that I move closer to what I envision in my mind, when I practice more and more. And that really has nothing to do with perfect.
Or maybe it just tells me I’ll always slow down and take a little time over an interesting beard.
To borrow a phrase from Frankie Avalon, “Don’t stop now.” Keep sketching. You might rarely look back, but when you do look back to evaluate what you’ve done you’ll find so much that you love on pages which show how your mind and hand are learning.
I hope you find happiness, fun, safety, and health, in the new year.
