“Sketch Anyway”—it’s something that I’m fond of saying. It’s something I’ve instructed my students to do for over 40 years.
“Sketch Anyway,” means you need to sketch even if you don’t feel like it, even if you are rushed for time, even if you are surrounded by chaos.
The benefits to sketching even though conditions aren’t ideal include an increased ability to sketch at any time and place, thus creating more opportunities for creative expression. The resultant volume of work creates momentum to carry you forward, literally through anything.
How Can We Practice “Sketch Anyway” Effectively?
Sit down and sketch. Right now, pick up a pen and sketch.
It doesn’t matter what you sketch—though I find that people are more successful creating a strong habit of sketching if they sketch something that they love, or which interests them. Give up notions that such and such an artist you follow sketches flowers—if you don’t like flowers don’t sketch them. (I don’t particularly like flowers so I sketch realistic dinosaur replicas.)
Sketch more than you thought you could—this doesn’t mean that you make yourself late for work! What this means is that sketch and push your limits even if you are sketching quick sketches.
That’s what I’ve shown you today—two quick sketches of peppers made near the end of the day with a bold brush pen on drawing paper. They were made because the day was ending and I didn’t want to see it end without getting some drawing done.
This is a classic case of sketch anyway—the day was taken up with appointments and work and I didn’t have a moment to breath. Or so it felt. Yet I knew I wanted to get some sketching in.
It didn’t matter to me that the sketches were very quick, and even wonky. I knew my mind wasn’t as focused as I like to be when sketching. I knew the sketches would be wonky. Embrace the wonkiness. (This is something else I always tell my students, because frankly there will always be days, and even weeks, when all you produce seems to be wonky; if you embrace it and move on, you’ll keep your momentum.)
You can of course stop with one quick sketch, or two quick sketches, or one sketch which wasn’t as quickly drawn as two would have been in your time constraints. The point here isn’t about volume of sketching—it’s about taking an opportunity to sketch.
But the real benefit in “Sketch Anyway” is when you PUSH a little more than you originally sat down and “bargained for.”
For some of you that real benefit might come in the completion of a second sketch. Or several more quick sketches.
What I want you to start considering is that once you have got a couple sketches (at any time during the day) into your book, see if you can’t push a little more.
Again, that might initially mean doing a second sketch.
I’d like you to think also about how pushing includes making a change to the parameters of what you’re sketching and how you’re sketching.
If throughout the day you’ve been sketching in “stolen” moments, fast, wonky, and with the simple idea to just get something down on paper, then think about pushing a little more by changing the parameters to doing something more “finished” or something sketched more slowly and thoughtfully—whatever difference matters to you.
My final sketch of the day (shown in the second image in today’s post) is a portrait of a character on “Watson.” I was watching the show at the end of a very long and tiring day. I’d already taken time to sketch anyway—the two pepper sketches.
I could easily have simply gone to bed.
But here’s the thing, if you take time to sketch anyway during the day, you get your brain and hand and eye primed for observation and execution.
When I saw this character I knew I wanted to do a quick sketch of him. I didn’t leap to the idea of “I’m going to stay up all night and do a full blown watercolor painting of him.” Instead I pushed to the next step which was —I want to do a simple pen and ink study.
When you take logical and reasonable stretches like this in your expectations and intention of a drawing you are setting yourself up for success! This is key to keep in mind. You are stretching beyond the simple warm up sketches you made during the day, and pushing to something that engages you a little more deeply, but still doesn’t require more than a few minutes of time.
Pushes like this help you build momentum, keep you practicing your skills, and teach you a new wholistic way to think of your drawing practice.
These pushes also provide you with opportunities to silence your internal critic (by setting reasonable expectations and realizing you are in practice) and providing new ways to think about your work positively. (I’ll have more to say about this in an upcoming post.)
If you haven’t already done any sketching today, why don’t you try this right now? Pull out your dinner pepper. Stand at a window with a favorite view and select one small vignette to sketch. Find your sleeping pet and focus on just getting a paw detail for sketch one; maybe sketch two is a gesture sketch of the complete figure of your sleeping pet. Or get out a couple of your dinosaurs!
You get the idea.
If you get one sketch. Fantastic.
If you push and get two sketches that are quick and turn out a bit wonky, that’s fantastic too.
If you walk away from your sketches and do the rest of your day and come back at the end of the day to have one more go sketching something that engages you—with your expectations and intentions clearly fixed in your mind—well now you’re practicing.
And that’s fantastic too. But remember, if something happens and you don’t get to return to sketching you haven’t failed, you’ll push again tomorrow. Just doing the one sketch might be your push for that day. Every time you show up to sketch you are building your habit and your skills. You don’t need a “porfolio-worthy” piece as a result to make this work. Let go of the desire for perfection for each of your sketches. Learn from them in their beautiful wonkiness.
Do what you can, whenever you can—sketch anyway. It adds up over a lifetime.
