After complaining I couldn’t draw and wondering how on earth I’d managed to get onto an artsy course with the drawing skills of a five year old, one of my friends said a saying to me that really made me start thinking.
“It takes years to draw like a master, but a lifetime to draw like a kid.”
After doing a quick google search on this, I think it stems from a quote from Picasso,
“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”
This got me thinking into how I see my artwork and why I instantly put it down to being bad. When we first start drawing, we often compare it to the top artists or people who are crazily talented, leading us to look at our work in a not so positive light. We are essentially just creating imitations of great work, not our own pieces.
Now if we go back in time, as children, we drew whatever we wanted and didn’t see it as being good or bad. It was just your picture of a dragon or your mom with wings and a spiky tail. Because, why not? There were no limits put on our creativity. But as we grow up, we start to be told what’s ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in art, what’s ‘good’ or ‘bad’. We’re told we now have to colour inside the lines, and the sky has to be blue and the grass green. Our inner child starts to disappear and be replaced by boring rules. Therefore, our initial creativity dies.
Picasso is telling us every child is an artist. This is something we have to take on throughout our art careers. Forget the rules. Pick up that pen and scribble whatever you want. I think the main thing is stop asking for validation from others, make art for yourself, stop asking for other people’s opinions; children don’t ask for someone’s else opinion, they make art for themselves. Purely have fun with it, there shouldn’t be any pressure or expectations on art, whatever you create is amazing because you did it.
This idea has led me to buying my own little drawing book. I’ve started carrying it with me wherever I go and draw whatever I want. I’m doing it to experiment with my own drawing style and see what works for me and develop my technique. I’ve never been the best at realistic drawings (although who’s to say what’s good or bad ay), so I prefer to go for a doodle messy style of illustration. By finding this out, I can experiment more with other styles, such as line drawings and drawing without looking at the page. To be honest, recently I’ve been in a bit of an artistic rut, not really knowing what to do with it and where to go. Reviews on my workbook for FCP have been ‘include more doodles! add more illustration!’ so I think by me experimenting now I’ll soon be happy to include these little bits and improve my work.
So, thanks Picasso.
Comments