If you're creative, this advice may be just the boost you're after
You don't think your art is good because you compare it to the wrong thing - How to look at your art to truly see it
Film critic Roger Ebert was less known for his art. Yet it is his view on his own art that is worth noting because it is the reminder we all need that our self-expression aids understanding and enjoying ourselves in this life.
In his post You can draw, and probably better than I can, Roger recalls being reminded by Annette, that we can all draw. It is only upon being told by someone that we cannot, that we convince ourselves otherwise and stop. And we shouldn’t; here’s why…
Yes, few can indeed draw realistically or accurately, you might say. But as Roger points out, that is if we consider two-dimensional versions of three-dimensional things accurate. This brings us to the point that art is art, and art is anything and everything without rules as to what constitutes it.
Thirty years after that 1980’s meeting with Annette, Roger remembers the point being about the error of our judgement being perfectionism. Perfectionism has no place in art, just as it isn’t part of real life; that is where art should imitate life.
Annette left Roger with some advice we can all benefit from, which he recalls as;
Begin with a proper sketchbook.
Draw in ink.
Finish each drawing you begin, and keep every drawing you finish.
No erasing, no ripping out a page, no covering a page with angry scribbles.
What you draw is an invaluable and unique representation of how you saw at that moment in that place according to your abilities.
That's all we want.
Art’s job isn’t to look like something we see. Art’s job is our expression as it achieves in its becoming. For Roger, that was to capture a scene for remembering, which in drawing, encourages you to study it and, in turn, aids your memory along with the image on the page.
In practising art, we learn about who we are, which seems to be something we all wonder about from time to time.
Art is about you and a moment. It is in the fun of it and the creativity of it. The judgement of it is out of place.
Expressing yourself connects you to your story by enhancing your presence in it.
By abandoning perfectionism in your art, you liberate yourself to draw your way as nobody else can and only you can discover. No one can reveal your artistic style; it is only found in regular practice or your art. An approach, as Annette described, that finishes what it starts and kept the reference.
All art by Roger Ebert.