Draw for yourself first, everyone else last

 

Doodling and drawing, as I've said many times, are like my own fidget spinner. My wife dutifully points out that I am the world's most miserable man if I'm asked to just sit quiet, relax and do nothing.

I am the sort of person who loves the idea of a long hot relaxing soak in the tub more than the actual thing itself.

 In reality whenever I do indulge I'm in and out in under 15 mins. 

Whenever we go anywhere and I know there'll be long periods of inactivity, waiting around or boredom I don't reach for my phone or a tablet, I reach for a sketchbook and a mechanical pencil and tuck those into my bag instead. 

On Twitter at the moment I'm taking part in Sketchtober (as previously blogged). This is a daily challenge where, for the entire 31 days of this halloween month, you're supposed to sketch or doodle something that follows a set theme. I couldn't find a single list that I wanted to draw ideas from so just made up my own (again as previously blogged about). 

What I wasn't expecting was that my drawing and doodling seems to have passed a point I'd been striving to reach a long time ago, where I can effectively draw something I'm picturing in my head. I've always wanted to be able to do that. 

Betty Edwards (she of "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" fame - a truly inspirational and essential book for all would-be artists, particularly portrait artists) describes this type of drawing as 'relying on one's inner symbol set, quite often a symbol set that is derived from childhood memories of what something looks like in your imagination vs what it actually looks like". 

This is true, in that when you (as an adult) go to draw an eye, you'll probably draw that usual opal-shape with an eyeball in the middle, a couple of lids, maybe some lashes - then get depressed when you look at a real, actual eye in someone's face and it looks nothing like what you've just drawn. 

I had relied on this inner symbol set for a long time, but one thing Betty Edwards did NOT say is that you can add to it. Yes, you, even you as an adult can expand the symbol set you (literally) draw on every time you start a drawing or doodle. You can add to it by drawing things from observation, following and copying the styles of other artists, or just by following tutorials or instructional stuff in books or online and adapting them to your own style. 

Style is also something that it feels like it's taken me decades to achieve. I'm still not sure I have a "House Style" and most of the artists I revere also seem to be able to switch up their styles to suit a particular piece so I'm not too put off by this. But in the drawings I'm doing for Sketchtober I can see commonality between a lot of the faces I draw. This is probably because they nearly ALL start off in the same way, with the very lightest of scribbles of a basic head shape facing the right way or set to a particular view before I start really going to town on them and working on them a bit more to get them 'right'. 

I don't make any claims to be a fantastic artist but the one piece of advice I always give my daughter is the strapline to this blog article. "Draw for yourself first, everyone else last" and that still holds true. I'm not labouring under any illusion that I've still got a LONG way to go before I'm the artist I've always wanted to be. Certain things still elude me (fine on faces, terrible at backgrounds, buildings, mechanical stuff etc) but the more I draw and doodle (and I endeavour to do so every single day) the more my confidence and cockiness grows, to a point where I'm drawing stuff now that I dearly wish I'd been able to draw 20-30 years ago or more. 

I've set myself medium to long term goals of: 

1) Getting way way better at drawing full body anatomy in better poses than the standard "Arms doin' nothin" pose

2) Getting way way better at drawing buildings, busy street scenes, the sort of cluttered fussy details that really finish off a piece of artwork

3) Getting way way better at drawing devices, machines, weapons, accessories that my doodled figures will interact with

4) Getting way way better at drawing expressions, injecting characters with life, emotions, again breaking away from those standard "lips closed, grumpy looks" that I always draw. 

5) Getting way way better at painting and colour. 

I'm indebted to artists like Andrew Loomis, Xia Taptara, Lorenzo Etherington and a whole host of fantasy and science fiction artists who don't just put their work out there, but endeavour to share their methods and their knowledge with us mere mortals through their awesome books and tutorials. One day, maybe one day, I might finish a sketchbook that I'll be proud of, cover to cover.