Why do we feel that if our drawing is not done quickly it’s not worth doing? The world is too hurried and our art is suffering from it. Drawing is not manufactured at the cheapest cost or quickly hatched out between punches on a time card. Drawing is a labor of love.
A well done drawing demands your full attention and your time. There are not a lot of shortcuts in the process to be found. To draw well you have to sit down and draw what you see and that takes time.
Drawing with any gray scale medium is particularly demanding because there is no flash and dazzle of color to fool the viewer’s eye. Gray scale drawing is also very soothing to look at and because of that it invites very close inspection. People want to put their noses very close to drawings and that means each line, each shaded area, each pencil mark will be scrutinized. And that’s a good thing. It takes time to really look at a drawing and some people hunger for the chance to slow down and to take the time to really see.
I draw for those people.
Carol…. I used to hurry my drawings in the beginning. I felt my time was so limited and it was “necessary to crank one out” in the shortest amount of time. Now…after all these years…when I feel hurried, I stop. Walk away for a while. Come back later or even the next day. Yes, our art is a labor of love and it deserves our time.
Hi Christie
The craft of this medium is very important to me too. I love to see the graphite thick and black or thin and spider web-y or beautifully gradated.
Hmmm. Does the unhurried look add something to what the drawing says? I think it must.
i used to draw very fast, but day by day i felt my drawung is not getting bettr so i tried to draw slowly , and its realy worked it become more meanigfull and emotional
Hi ola,
I totally agree with you. When you draw slowly it becomes much more meaningful. And drawing slowly gives me more time to discover how a drawing wants to be drawn too. I think it’s important to honor how an image wants to be expressed, and when I feel that I understand it, that’s when I try to get out of the way and let the drawing be what it wants to be.