sketchbook

[egypturnash]

Since somewhere in the middle of the wedding this weekend, I've been having trouble drawing: a certain level of visualization I'd been depending on has been lacking; everything has felt awkward. It's been easy to fall into just doodling random shapes instead of actually creating any figures, scenes, or moods.





Honestly, this worries me. A large part of my identity is tied up in my art. If some weird shift in brain chemistry turns it off, what do I have left? I make pretty things; that's what I'm here for. My wings felt broken, my fires felt out.

It's possible that this is simply a result of all the socialization I did the past few days; I had a lot more contact with other people than normal, with nowhere to go hide most of the time. The last halfway-decent thing in my sketchbook was me doodling just before the wedding; after that everything's been fiddly and awkward.



Getting the kind of flow I've come to take for granted is suddenly difficult. The upgrade in the capacity of my mind's eye that happened near the beginning of this year was revoked, somewhere in the middle of Sunday. I have to do it all with my conscious mind again and that's a struggle.



Unsurprisingly this has me kind of worried. I'm pretty sure, on a rational front, that I'm just exhausted from the weekend. But what if it never comes back? What if something in my brain broke, got burnt out?



It could just be the same cycles of advancing drawing skill and advancing critical eye: I'm aware of some of the things I slack on, and maybe this is just me really starting to see them, and knowing I need some practice. Maybe.

On the other hand, I also told myself this weekend that I'd be free of this Tarot project for a while. It started suddenly the other week; I did a pretty impressive amount of work on it despite wanting to get going on Absinthe again. I said that I'd put that on hold and go back to the comic now - but I've been struggling with the simplest little doodles of Absinthe and her various foils.

So I wrote that down, and let the part of my brain that Knows How To Draw answer. A dialogue ensued.

(I should note, by the way, that the two figures appearing in this are, when fully realized in color, this and this. I should also note that the initial impetus to me doing the Tarot project was this doodle done late at night in a certain empty space around MIT.)






(I had to scan this several times to get the bottom right corner to come out; I don't think the diety/archetype/Presence involved wants any of you to know who she is.)



I guess Absinthe has to wait a little longer. I seem to have made a bargain; the drawings started flowing better while I was doing this, and the ones of the Dark Female Creative Archetype agreeing came a lot easier.

Comments

[barberio.livejournal.com]

My two cents... You're being more self critical, not less talented!

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Hopefully.

There's a state of unthinking flow that I've easily achieved when drawing for a lot of the past year, and it went missing this past weekend.

[paka.livejournal.com]

"doodling various shapes" instead of figures sounds like some sort of subconscious trying to process silhouette or overall composition. What were you thinking about art-wise before you went to the wedding?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Nah, the doodles are... the kind of stuff non-artists do on the phone. Geometric swirly abstract stuff that just fills up the paper to no real purpose. I haven't bothered scanning it because it's boring to look at.

And mostly I was thinking about the Tarot stuff beforehand, and wanting to stop doing it and get back to Absinthe!

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

Doodles and aimless shapes and drawings are not a bad thing. It lets the... left?.. part of the brain go and do what it wants without the constricting demands of the right side for a while.

Between construction lines and real works, my mother often had little swirls and abstract shapes on peices of papers, with an occasional not jotted down, and she did this even when she wasn't on the phone. I think it helps get the head in the right place to do the things it wants to do.

Of course, the issue might be that you don't want to do what you are doing anymore. It's not that you don't want to draw, but you don't want to draw 'that' all over again. You're mind is just tired of doing it the same old way. You might consider a drastic stylistic change for a while. Going back to paint for a while might help, or going back and doing realistic studies might jog things back to where you want them. Do some pure contor for a while.

Just let yourself find yourself again.

[eselgeist.livejournal.com]

*waves all that away*

you sound like you've never burned out before! pfft!

and if you -haven't- then it's high time you have!

just give it a few weeks. in the meantime, go soak up
what -other- people have done that's new to you.

poke around the various harvard museums, the Fogg, etc.
you'll be inspired again in no time. and don't stress
it, chica. your hands will figure it out after
they unfrazzle. i find that switching creative gears
entirely, helps. write, work some clay/sculpey into
small 15 bakeable figures, go dancing. cook.

you are a muse, remember? no worries.

[foibos.livejournal.com]

I can certainly sympathize. It's a terrible thing to lose "it", to experience the possibility (or fact) that whatever one thought of as one's fundamental ability might not be there any more.

[convoluted expostulation expunged]

I agree with your reasoning about exhaustion and the achievement/assessment cycle; I'm sure you will continue to dazzle us in the future. I just want to say that your predicament resonated with my own and thank you for the comfort and hope your story here gave me.

[devibunnie.livejournal.com]

and i thought i was the only person who let my drawings talk to me in this day and age. i'm stoked sheerly by your processes.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

It happens every so often. Usually, now that I think about it, somewhere near the onset of winter. Hmm. I find myself weirdly tempted to go look at the dates on the other times this sort of dialogue has happened, and look for correspondences...