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This post is along the lines of my last post: Practicing Automatic Creation

(Oct 13, 2004) Artist Thought of the Day: When drawing or painting, one may find themself distracted with the effort to create something with photo resemblance-perfection. They are obstructed from drawing or painting something simply from the fear of not being able to do it right. This is merely a fear of which you can avoid by simply becoming immersed in the act itself.

Just like meditation, you must go into a zone or state of unconcious drawing/painting. Since a child, this has been my tool for drawing. I would start with a picture in my mind, and then let it appear on the paper. Drawing was a form of entertainment for me as a child. I could go anywhere I wanted in my pictures, which is probably what made it possible for me to draw at a higher level than most children.

I would go into a state of relaxation and unconciousness, not wondering if I can draw the object or thing, but only knowing that it would become a story on paper. Good or not. Because of that ability to zone, I became better and better at drawing. I would draw every day since I was 3. My mom would give me some paper and pens to draw on the couch during the summers. When I was at school, and got bored during class, I would draw. It was an escape for me throughout school.

If I went for a couple months without drawing, like after I had my first child, I went back to the drawing board with much problems. I became disconnected from the drawing process and forgot how to draw subconciously. I kept trying to remember how to draw things, and attempted to go at it systematically. I messed up dozens of times because I was thinking too hard about the process and not getting into the relaxed/unconcious zone I needed to create the picture. It took a couple days before I learned that drawing subconciously was my method. I was unaware that my method was not systematically like a how-to-book.

I’ve been asked by dozens of people how it was that I could draw hair that flowed and people that had such movement and aliveness, and all I could simply say was that I drew them as I felt them move.