Daily Drawing
Now that I have been doing this daily drawing experiment for a week I thought it might be a good idea to take stock. The first thing that is clear to me is that I am not very good at drawing. The second is that I haven’t got the inclination to make much the drawings I do any better. The longest I’ve taken on these drawings is five minutes and I rarely correct anything I do. Like fellow Oadbyite Glaswegian David Shrigley I prefer to be playful and amateurish rather than serious and professional. If I had unlimited time to work on all the details I would probably do something else, but I will carry on in order to fulfill my daily obligation.
What most surprised me is that despite being conceptually poor and terribly executed, I am still finding them quite difficult, a lot more difficult than I anticipated. I thought that it was going to be a doss, but it it isn’t. Maybe it gets easier at some point, presumably when you have a style and your simple cartoon is syndicated around the world. Maybe not.
We saw Nicky Bird on the train from Newcastle on Saturday and she gave us a Keith Haring calendar. Haring, who was associated with Basquiat in New York, produced great but incredibly simplistic and ugly paintings. Perhaps I could do things like that?
Anyway, I hope you find some pleasure in these drawings, even if it is only the pleasure of being able to have a good long sneer.
Flash is the best drawing package I’ve ever used, great brushes, great straightening. Illustrator, a bit of a pain.