I'm Drawing Again
& Failing
See, design just seems to be more natural. Frustrating (layout I’m looking at you) but natural. At some point during the graphic design process I lay down one part of the composition and I know how to do the rest and it just feels perfect. Drawing— drawing has never felt perfect to me.
I’ve always felt as if I was wrestling with the pencil and the paper and my mind when I was drawing. Tip toeing around graphite marks with fears I would mess up the already dilapidated portrait of Steph Curry in front of me. Drawing was scary. Drawing is scary.
But if you ask my family they would know that I insist, when I can, to make everything from scratch. My dream is to own a house with a farm (small and not far from the city, but still with a chicken and a cow and a goat and land to grow things like lettuce and potatoes) and be able to make everything myself. Sew my own clothes, knit my own sweaters, bake my own bread and do it all myself. Not because I am wildly independent and resist the aid of others (right mom) but rather because there is something so irresistible about having a vision in your head and bringing it to life with you hands.
Drawing, is designing from scratch. And thats why I keep coming back for more.
I want to be an illustrator. I want to be able to sit and draw a beautiful compositions full of color and life that I created from just my mind and my hands.
To understand space, color, balance and form perfectly and to be able to draw it?? and not have to find a photo or a shape to fill up space with but it just make it yourself?? That is the dream.
I so deeply love design, it is something that flows from me and just makes sense. Illustration, drawing— is in me— but not effortless. It forces me to dig deeper with wrenches and shovels past the years of giving up and failing to practice, practice, practice, like every illustrator on Youtube has told me the past 10 years. Its forcing me to break my habits of inconsistency.
And its not even that I am bad! Its just that I am insisting on perfection. I want it to be good from the start but it never is., and its never going to be. And its going to take and patience (a virtue I have never been blessed with) to get where I want to be. And its going to force me to trust the process. Because I am not as good as others but that does not mean I won’t eventually be.
So I’m drawing again, and this time I set on making it last.
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Mustard believes in you!
Looking forward to seeing you journey on this quest!
As somebody who can’t draw (like, at all), I’ve always thought of it as such a natural and effortless act for those who can. Really interesting to hear that it’s not always the case. But hey, nothing good ever came from being easy, right? Best of luck!