talent

I’ve been thinking about making a little money with this site by selling prints of my drawings. But for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to actually do it.

I’ve been telling myself all kinds of reasons why I haven’t yet tried it. Maybe because I don’t have enough drawings yet to sell. But I’ve got 19 drawings I could try to sell, which is more then enough to start.
Or maybe because it’s a lot of work to set up my site. But although I haven’t started yet I don’t think it’s that much work.
Or maybe because if I’m really successful it would mean that I should leave my save but boring job. But again that’s not really true. Even if I were to become successful there is nothing that would force to give up my day job.
Or could it be that I’m not certain whether I will ever have enough inspiration to make an other drawing I like enough to sell. Would it be fair to spend the next few years trying to sell the drawings I’ve made up till now.

Thinking about something Wil Wheaton said (Nothing is as safe as not taking creative risk) and experiencing how frightening it was to have the feeling that I might be talented. I finally realized what the problem is.

Making a drawing feels like making a test. Like the ones I used have to make when I was in school.
With every drawing I finish I feel satisfied for a while. Until I begin with the next one and again I feel I will be judged.
Not by you but by myself. By my conscience.
Am I really trying my best?
Not just playing around?
Am I producing a quality that is in line with the last drawing?

I find that I’m a far tougher judge then any teacher I ever had in school. But on the other hand I also feel that I should.
I feel that whether it’s about life, work or learning how to draw. What’s the point if you don’t try to push yourself to your limits

Due to my broken hip I’ve had a lot of time to think recently. One of the things I’ve found is that I’m running out of challenges in my work.
For a while I thought about going back to school. But that wouldn´t help. It was fun 20 years ago but now it would be just a repeat of an old challenge.

Although I’m not yet there I’m slowly getting round to the idea of setting myself the challenge to work towards the goal of living of off my art.

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After my last post Tammy commented: “Nobody nose noses like you noses ‘em!”
I very much like that kind of playing with words. So you’ll understand that this drawing isn’t about mice but about mouths.

The challenge with this drawing are the curving lines that have to meet each other at a specific distance and the shading. But it turned out that both are very much easier then I thought.
To draw curing lines you have to sketch them very lightly. Using a black pencil from a color pencil set instead of the grey HB pencil that is usually advised for this type of drawing, makes that a lot easier. With a black pencil a number of hues between white and black becomes much greater. Which means that you can sketch with a very light stroke and later cover it with the actual drawing.

The shading also turned out to be much easier then I expect. Only thing is that I don’t jet know how to describe the process. I’ll come back on that one.

While doing these sketches I had a feeling I’ve never had before.
For years people have been telling me how talented they though me to be. To which my reaction has always been “you should only know how many hours I have spend drawing, to know that it’s not talent but sweat”. But while doing this sketch I actually felt that people might be right and that I indeed have some talent.

Feeling talented is actually both a funny and a frightening feeling. Frightening because it has some consequence I didn’t know how to deal with right away.
So I didn’t post this sketch the day before last, as I should have. But took some time to think about the consequences.
More about them in my next posting…

3 mouses

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talent

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