Breakthrough

 

3/31/22 graphite, colored pencil and my imagination

After noting how contrived my memory-drawing exercises were starting to feel, and discouraged that I wasn’t seeing more progress, by Day 44, I was ready to take a break. I knew I was learning about my drawing and thinking processes, and that was somewhat rewarding in that I’m always interested in how I learn things. But without the reward of seeing how these exercises would help me in my day-to-day sketching life, it all felt pointless. Instead of looking forward to each day’s exercise, I was starting to dread it – a sure sign that I’m on the downhill slide. But call it pride or stubbornness or whatever, when I commit to a personal challenge like the 100 Day Project, I don’t like to quit.

On Day 45, I reviewed my goal in taking part in the 100 Day Project: to gain more practice in drawing from my mind, especially my imagination. By “imagination,” I’m including things like cartooning, but making comics has never been my primary interest. What I’d really like to be able to do is draw things realistically without having the subject right there before my eyes. I hoped that a first step in doing this would be to learn to retain the visual memory of something I had seen so that I could draw it later without direct observation.

Day 41: Top: notes and schematics of hole puncher; 
bottom: sketch from memory

That’s when it dawned on me: OK, so I didn’t correctly recall the shapes and details of my box cutter or hole puncher, and nailing proportions without observational feedback is still a struggle. But maybe I’ve retained enough of the objects I’ve closely observed that I can draw them in some imaginative way?

I opened a sketchbook and immediately started drawing a nonsensical, impossible thing made up of parts I’ve drawn from memory recently. I didn’t have to worry about getting the details, shapes or proportions “right,” since no actual model existed – and it became fun instead of a test! More important, I realized immediately that I could never have done anything like the drawing above before I started the 100 Day Project. Even if my daily exercises haven’t been feeling successful, I am obviously learning and making progress – in a way that is meaningful and not just a contrived exercise. This was a huge breakthrough for me!

I also had this important insight: Whenever I saw wonderfully imaginative yet realistic drawings (the works of Nina Johansson and David Zinn spring to mind), it used to seem like these artists could pull these images straight out of their heads in some magical way. They certainly have fanciful imaginations, but they also have many years of experience honing their skills in drawing from observation. Although the imaginative part is unique to each of them, their ability to put what they imagine onto paper is a practiced skill – it’s not magic after all! Holy cow! It’s possible for any of us!

Day 42 taught me that my note-writing skills were improving, but I think I was interpreting my notes more than actually remembering details.

Now I feel like I can push on through the remaining days in my 100. I was just on the cusp of discovery when I felt like quitting – I’m thrilled that I didn’t!

Another interesting aspect of this drawing was the three-dimensional rendering. With my study of traditional realism at Gage Academy, especially learning light logic from Suzanne Brooker, I figured that rendering something imaginatively would be fairly straightforward, and I was right. It was a good opportunity, though, to try it, since I rarely render anything without having actual shadows and light to observe. The trickiest part was the faucet handle on top . . . in our bathroom, the light is directly overhead, not to the side, so I couldn’t even look at the actual handles for help.

Day 43: I skipped the schematics and took fewer notes from observation.

I changed tactics on Day 44: For 2 minutes, I drew the box cutter from direct observation, but made no notes and did not observe beyond the 2 minutes that I was drawing. After a couple hours, I made the drawing below from memory. Even as I was making the observational drawing, I felt like I wasn't spending enough time on focused observation because I was too busy drawing.