âDrawing is scary. Will it go wrong? Will it look like them? What will other people think?
A blank piece of paper creates such excitement, so many possibilities - images that are held but not seen, more felt or smelt than visualized.â â Ishbel Myerscough
I recently rewatched two great talks by artist Christoph Niemann.
I talked about the first one in a previous post around the topic of visual language and communicating through drawing - I praise Niemannâs work and creativity at every chance I have, I learn so much from him. Today, I am sharing some thoughts on the second talk I watched recently, a brilliant, witty, funny talk about the creative process, its struggles, and how to overcome them: Christoph Niemann: How to Overcome the 3 Fears Every Creative Faces.
Fear. That fearful word.
Niemann talks about three main fears every creative person faces during the process of making art and gives some advice on how to defeat them. This is a summary of them (again, I highly recommend watching his talk):
Problem 1: Iâm not good enough
Popular advice:
Relax! Donât be so hard on yourself.Niemannâs prescription: Practice and become better
Problem 2: My work is irrelevant and soon Iâll be broke
Niemannâs prescription: Focus on your work and create a safety zone so you donât have to worry about money. Become your harshest critic, do your think and believe in your creativity.
Problem 3: Iâm out of ideas
Niemannâs prescription: Create. You have to create, you have to start. Open your mind wide to see new connections. Play as work.
And, I would add a fourth one to this list:
Problem 4: I donât know where to start (the fear of the blank page/writerâs block)
Popular advice: Start small
My prescription: Start by learning from the work of others and adopt a âYes, andâ attitude.
Let me explain.
The fear of the blank page is very real, very tangible - but it disappears immediately after we draw the very first line or when we shape the first brushstrokes on a painting. This is because once we engage with the process and draw the first steps, there is no blank page to fear anymore.
Most self-help talk about the fear of starting anything new will recommend starting small, taking small steps, and doing 1% at a time. And while this advice is very useful - once we have really started - we still have the problem of taking the very first, frightening step on that blank page. Most of the time this happens to people who are starting at a beginnerâs level, but it can also happen to professionals who find themselves in a block.
My advice, and what has helped me when I have been in that place, is adopting a âYes, andâ attitude, a concept borrowed from improv performances. It means taking something that already exists or itâs available to us and transforming it into something else, adding our input to it.
These are three techniques I would adopt to overcome the fear of the blank page with a âYes, andâ attitude:
Tracing. Take a photograph and trace it over if you are unsure about drawing from memory or scratch. Train your line style or eye by tracing other drawings or images.
For instance: in my job as an architect and urban designer, I use the 3D digital models Iâve done of a built environment to set up a view and trace over a scene. Or I take Google Maps views and trace over them the design I have in my mind. This allows me to have a base at scale, proportioned, so I can quickly sketch over.
Last year I published a post on tracing if youâd like to get more ideas on this. Also, at the beginning of the Pandemic, in 2020, I did a series of drawings based on photographs I called Corona Chronicles, documenting the lockdown days of me and my partner with a touch of humour.
Recreating the work of our masters and the stuff we like. Take other artistsâ work as a reference, be analytical about the reasons why you find their work interesting, and try to repeat and learn from their processes.
For instance: I have taken Christoph Niemanâs drawings and tried to replicate the process with a different subject to learn from his way of looking at things. This is really something all artists do - van Gogh copied some Japanese prints he found appealing, and Hockney is always looking at historic pictures to get ideas and processes to test his own. So many other artists have done their own versions of masterpieces and many, many architects and designers take inspiration from history and the world around them.
Collecting images and collaging them. Collect some images you find interesting, crop them, and rearrange them. You can do a literal collage or you can also collage and mix different techniques or styles.
For instance: Lara Lars is a Spanish artist who creates beautiful pop collages inspired by women and mid-20th century imagery. Sheâs actually made collage her signature style. She says (in Spanish, but I translated it for you): âCertainly, collage is a technique that has that rebel approach of transforming something that already exists into something new, giving it a new meaning. Though I like this approach, it is simply another way of telling the world (literal translation of the Spanish expression for âtelling a storyâ).â
Overcoming any fear is a tricky business, and overcoming these creative fears takes mostly self-acceptance and being kind to ourselves and to our process. I love this quote from one of the books I am currently reading:
In large measure becoming an artist consists of learning to accept yourself, which makes your work personal, and in following your own voice, which makes your work distinctive. Clearly, these qualities can be nurtured by others. Even talent is rarely distinguishable, over the long run, from perseverance and lots of hard work. â David Bayles and Ted Orland, Art & Fear
In summary: practice, create a safety zone, play, learn from the work of others, and adopt a âYes, andâ attitude.
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Happy sketching!
Ana
Interesting and motivating!