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thoughts on ink: a long-winded ramble about my first year of learning to draw

about a year ago now i decided to start learning how to draw, from scratch, with almost no prior experience or knowledge.

well, i had a few scattered & unguided art classes in high school during which i did photography because my attempts at painting were so terrible. for the record i was also terrible at photography and still am.

i always felt pulled back to doodling little pictures in the margins of notebooks and textbooks. crappy little stick figures, awkwardly proportioned cats, pages and pages of overlapping concentric circles. i wanted to draw but i believed it was something reserved for others. i got laughed at and told i couldn't do it, that if i wasn't any good now i would never be, and my self esteem was so bad that i accepted what people said.

that was decades ago. for long stretches i wouldn't even doodle anything. but, when i went back to uni as a mature student, part of our undergrad work was to make field sketches of rock faces. i enjoyed drawing those, though i didn't know what i was doing and i knew they didn't look quite right. yet i even got a few compliments on them, and i think it was then that a little seed got planted. maybe i wasn't so innately terrible?

i started doodling again and even bought a sketchbook, but after a couple of failed attempts to get what was in my head onto the page, it stayed quite empty and i lost confidence.

more time passed, and suddenly it was 2024. i don't really do New Year's Resolutions, and drawing wasn't on the radar. however, i kept seeing pictures i didn't like. plasticky genAI abominations, more and more of them, shitting up the spaces i had enjoyed. it bothered me a lot more than i anticipated. i knew the frustration of having something in your head but not having the skill to get it out how you wanted, but the noxious laziness of genAI got under my skin and i felt irritated every time i saw something vomited out of the plagiarism machines.

i couldn't stop these companies doing what they did, and i couldn't stop anyone else using these toys, but it was clear in my mind that what i could do was learn to draw. to take it seriously, and develop skill. to accept that i may never be good at it, but i could at least be much better at it. so i picked out some tutorial videos for absolute beginners and i started learning.

that first week i made things i never dreamed i would be capable of. they were just some still life pencil sketches but i sat down and put the time & effort in and (surprise, surprise) it wasn't so bad. they were not good drawings, but they were still far better than anything i had done before, and better than i ever expected. it was a big boost to my confidence, and i knew i wanted to keep going. so i did.

i haven't been as consistent the whole year as i was in those first few weeks. i had a terrible year, with massive stressful upheavals and some extra medical problems on top. those were times when i could barely do anything at all, let alone focus enough to draw. it upset me that i couldn't, though, i felt frustrated that nothing would come out. but it was easier to come back. i would tell myself "let's learn something, just a simple thing" and doodle a shrub or a chair, and it was suddenly okay again.

this is only the first step in a long journey. there is so, so much to learn. i think one of the things i like most about drawing so far is that i am always learning. every time i make a mark on the page, i am learning. every time i look at an object and think about what shapes it breaks down into, i am learning. every time i fuck up, i am learning, and i fuck up a lot. with any luck, some of the learning sticks and i stop fucking up as much. i am still terrible but i am less terrible than i was.

for now, i have largely settled on traditional mediums, specifically pen and ink. i don't use fancy pens or paper. i have one shitty quality pencil for sketching things. my sketchbooks are rough and ugly $5 spiral bound monstrosities. i don't currently have a desk or a lamp. i have a set of slightly nicer (but still cheap) fineliners that i do not use because i am terrified of wasting them when i have a perfectly adequate 0.3mm that i got from the supermarket.

i have seen advice to treat oneself with nice materials, to only use the best possible tools, but i prefer going a different route - using stuff that isn't so good so i have permission to make bad drawings, to waste a page with failed experiments, to scribble. i know from experience that using a nice pen and a nice book results in me freezing in terror, producing nothing. everyone must do what works best for them, it just makes more sense to me to opt for the method that results in something other than a blank page.

as for ink, i think in part this goes way back. we didn't have tv in the early half of my childhood so i just read everything i could get my hands on. i had a special fondness for books with black-ink illustrations, woodcuts or engravings. these styles always stuck with me, and while i can appreciate the complexities of using colour, black ink seems to be what appeals to me most.

i would like to develop my pencil skills more, but when i use pencil i miss how unforgiving ink is. once you make a mark with a pen, there is nothing you can do about it, you have committed to something. it might not be what you intended it to be, but it is now something. every mistake has to be cleverly incorporated or changed, or it will be left exposed as a mistake. you cannot take it back the way you can with pencil, or digital for that matter.

i would like to get better at digital too, but every time i plug in my tablet and pick up the stylus i hate it. it feels awkward to me, and i get frustrated with every wrong mark. over and over i hit ctrl-z and grumble "if i was using pen & paper i would have a drawing by now!" while the canvas just stays blank. but perhaps it is fitting that i prefer something so unpopular. besides, i like having books that i can pick up and flip through and say "i made these pictures" even though they aren't good pictures, whereas anything i do on a computer disappears into a folder never to be seen again.

ink just feels right to me, whether it's a fineliner, a gel pen, or a ballpoint. i like how the pen interacts with the paper, the tangibility of it all. i like that my fingers get stained. i like the imperfections that happen when a pen starts running out of ink or makes an unexpected splotch. i like the improvisations it forces me to make. i like that i can use it anywhere, any pen, on any paper. i like drawing something for someone and seeing them hold it and enjoy it. i like that it is a bold and uncompromising medium but can also be very delicate. i like that you have to get to know each pen because they can have quirks. maybe one day i won't feel the same way, and i will try crayons and declare my love for them instead, who knows. but ink is my first love it seems.

after a year of inconsistent learning i still feel awkward to call anything i make art, or myself an artist. i am trying to get better about that, mainly because i worry i diminish what i do too often as silly doodles, little nothings, and i don't think that helps my self esteem. i think it would be healthier for me to say "i make art, it may not be good art yet, but it's still art". what else could it be, to conjure something from nothing. i believed i would never be able to draw anything. now i know different. i used to say "i can't draw", now i say "this drawing sucks". that's progress! :D

sorry this has been so meandering. i don't organise my thoughts so well or write so good but i wanted to get some things out and i also wanted to say that it is never too late to start whatever it is you want to learn. pick at it, even the tiniest bit, and you can make bigger leaps than you might have thought possible. it's so satisfying. i just wish i hadn't waited so long.

<3

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