A beginning
In January last year I had a vague urge to start drawing again. I'd reread Handprint which has an astonishing amount of information on watercolours and some recommendations on books to learn from.
I picked up the sketchbook I never used, and the art supplies I also didn't touch and gave it a try. The first date in this sketchbook is October 8th 2018 and I started drawing again in 2025. What follows is very tentative sketches of my cat. And the first few exercises from Keys To Drawing by Bert Dodson.
Then in autumn the amazing Rubyect_ posted about a class on illustration and comics she was teaching with London Drawing Group, and I got curious.
I did the class and I really enjoyed it. And then I did another class and I really liked that. And then I started looking at the other classes London Drawing Group offered.
I went to the art store and I bought myself a bigger sketchbook.
In November I started art therapy, because my previous therapist recommended it as a good fit.
Somewhere along the way I started realising that what stopped me from doing art before had been that I wanted it to be good. That the perfectionist in me needed it to be good. But being told what to do by the teacher in the classes shut the perfectionist up. And that actually, drawing was really fun. The feeling of putting your pencil on the paper and then drawing the line. That's fun. Filling a brush full of water and watercolour paint and then dragging the thing across the page in one fell swoop, that feels fantastic. It didn't actually matter whether the pencil line was the right one, or whether the splash of paint was in the right place.
Id never filled a sketchbook before in my life. The sketchbook I bought that autumn only lasted me until the summer of this year.
I bought a pad of watercolour paper and used it up. I bought a new sketch book and a block of 100 pages of drawing paper. The drawing paper is already gone. I now own a 10 meter roll of craft paper and have discovered that newsprint is a thing. This is wonderful because now I don't feel guilty about wasting paper.
About 99 percent of everything I draw goes in the trash. I enjoy the process, I enjoy the learning and the end result simply doesn't matter. I draw too much to keep everything I draw in my very small studio. I have a small portfolio I keep the drawings I really like in.
But I realised that I would like a place to document my art more. To share the things that do go in the trash. To be able to look back and see the progress and the fun I had along the way. Maybe I'll make 10 posts and quit like so many other creative projects, but lets find out.
Maybe I'll post some of the photography that has been languishing on my computer for years and years. Or some of the other things I do.