I credit cartoonist Will Terrell's YouTube channel with getting
me going with art again after years of "neglect".
I always enjoyed drawing and art when I was younger. But like
many adults, I largely gave it up when I got into the working
world. Perhaps I'm being unfair to myself: I guess I still
doodled a fair amount on scrap paper and doing a few paintings
now and then is perhaps more than your average person does...
And I was doing fairly frequent creative writing.
But the truth is, my artistic sensibilities had stagnated. I had
not progressed beyond whatever ability I'd built up in my late
teens and early twenties. I had not challenged myself and if
pressed to draw something, I would most likely whip up a skull or
some other motif from my high school years.
Watching Will Terrell's sketchbook tours and admonishments
to keep practicing eventually won me over. I was convinced.
Shortly after that, I found Matthew Archambault's "Drawing
Tutorials Online" YouTube channel featuring advice and tours of
his student's sketchbooks.
I went out and bought
a hardbound sketchbook and started to practice drawing daily.
And you know what? It worked!
In the four years between February 2014 and February 2018, I
filled 22 black, hardbound sketchbooks of various sizes.
As promised, I could clearly see my ability progress and mature
from the first sketchbook to the last.
It felt great - for years I had said to myself, "what would I be
capable of doing if I actually practiced this on a regular basis
rather than wasting my time on video games and, well, things like
YouTube?" And now I knew the answer: I would become a pretty
decent artist - confident in my ability to produce art I would be
proud of (when I slowed down and took my time.)
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Well, after we moved, things got real hectic and I didn't have
most of my supplies or a good space for creating art - or energy
- and a lot of other perfectly valid excuses.
And then we moved into the new house and got our stuff out of
storage and there was my box of sketchbooks.
Talk about mixed feelings.
On one hand, it was really fun to look through my sketchbooks
again - new all over again after some time and distance - had I
really created all of this!?
But on the other hand, I was now trying to pare down my
belongings - to make a new calm, uncluttered home - and here was
this uncompactable mass - and heavy as any large box of books
that needs to be stored.
And the truth is that most of the contents of these sketchbooks
is not worth keeping. It was daily sketching. You wouldn't
frame this stuff and hang it on your walls. If somebody wanted
to see my art, I wouldn't just plop one of these sketchbooks in
front of them - I would be far too embarrassed.
But neither can I just throw them out because _some_ of the art
in these _is_ pretty good.
Being bound sketchbooks, I can't just easily pluck out the good
stuff and put it all together. I'd have to cut out the pages.
And sometimes I did two-page spreads - I really don't know what
to do with those.
So while I'm really, really glad I did all that work and it is
fun to look through them from time to time, they remain this big
chunk of heavy _stuff_ in my closet.
I don't have a solution to this particular problem at all.
But going forward (I've started up again and
two year old hardbound Sketchbook 23
is finally starting to get close to the
end) - I'm going to use more small, spiral-bound sketchbooks so
that it will be easier to simply recycle the crap and keep the
gems.
And when I'm feeling really settled in and ready to be ambitious
once again, I'd like to work larger and slower -
producing less but of better quality.
I guess for now, I won't do anything dramatic with the
sketchbooks. They can stay in the closet and take up space for a
while. They're not doing much harm. I just wish they could be
doing me more _good_.
