Regarding sketching, I tend to think of my line & style as kind of simple, plain, minimalistic even. Reducing everything down to a bare minimum – that’s how I would like to do it. But at the moment my work is heading in a very different direction …?!
In his splendid new book – Dare to Sketch – Felix Scheinberger says:
Your line is you
Draw whatever way comes naturally. Every artist has something like a “natural line” that he or she is practically born with. Once you learn to accept yours, you’ll have taken a big step forward. (…) Anyone can learn tricks and gimmicks but you must learn to accept your own line and the way you draw–it’s your own unmistakable signature.
This all sounds very wonderful, but is it right? Do a new sketcher really have a natural line?
If Scheinberger is right, who am I, making all these intensely colourful sketches?
sub rosa 
You?
The line and paint are wonderful and you use the quality of each well.
I think there is a signature in line “an event” that happens as ink touches paper that is rather terrifying and very honest.
I am always trying to please someone other than myself. I paint to hide as much as to reveal.
Tell me: do you want to please someone else, or do you feel you have to?
I think it has to do with basic cowardice although I recognize that growing self confidence in any form of expression comes from the activity itself. Much of what I have done has been dependant on earning a living or at least covering the cost so there have been many interuptions. I am not really tethered to gaining approval per say. 😉
I have never been able to support myself through the work I have done as a writer – but I think fear, in my case, is an even bigger problem.
Fear of not knowing where I am going, fear of letting other people down, of becoming selg-avbsorbed, of failure – maybe even of success.
I think I have read that fear plays a part in creativity. I know that all sorts of feeling states arise and fall all the time, this becomes apparent the more I sit, but they will disolve, in fact they just become so common as to not gain any traction. Perhaps it is only when we are “open” that we are aware of them. Fear is the one we have the most to say about usually. Perhaps the secret is to come back to the activity regardless. I do remember going through a point of feeling total despair over what I am working on. At that point I have to walk away for a bit or I might just destroy it.
Hm … yes, I think I can recognize this –
but here is a totally different question to contemplate:
where did the cactus come from
I just started a group for writers who meet once a month at a local library. None of them have ever seen me as a clown so rather than frighten anyone away (some of us are not very sure about this whole blog business) I thought I would change my picture. 😉
Marvelous – good luck!
🙂
I have certainly experienced a fear of success. As an introverted person, I think I avoided standing out too much. Being exceptionally good at something draws attention, and I feared attention.
Now I am less fearful, perhaps I am less of an introvert! But fear can be a marvelous motivator…in a positive way, and in a negative way as well.
The sketches are fun and lively, Looks like Portugal, perhaps. A place like that cries out for color–and you are responding. That makes you…responsive? Observant? anyway–very nice.
In my experience attention from others, also the positive kind, can disturb once focus. It makes me think of the end result of my work, instead of concentrating on the process of making it. And also I suddenly feel obliged to satisfy or fulfill someone (anyones) expectations.
(The sketches in this post are done in the tiny village of Polop, Valencia – Spain, and so it must have similarities with Portugal. Polop: https://www.benidormseriously.com/all-about-the-village-of-polop/).
🙂