GISELE THE WEAVER
  • Home
  • Comics
  • Illustration
  • Misc
  • Blog
  • Links

Drawing Because It Feels Good

10/25/2021

5 Comments

 
A scanned section of a sketchbook page. It is a blue ballpoint sketch of a maple tree seed pod coloured with brown and green water colours. To the right of the seed pod sketch is another blue ballpoint pen sketch of some trees and bushes in autumn colours, also done using water colour.
Oh boy! It has been a bit!

I spent most of what remained of summer and the start of the autumn getting out and touching grass, going for bike rides, spending time with friends and around my community, and focusing on my day job. It's been nice! I've also been taking this time to think about my relationship with art and drawing and how it has changed over the past decade.

When I would draw as a kid/teen/young adult it was this very spontaneous thing. Who cared what the final result looked like? The act of drawing felt so good. Building anything out of my hands became a triumph. But as I improved at drawing and to an extent writing and could make money off of it, something started to shift and I felt myself losing that simple joy I got out of just drawing.

While getting out and about this summer one of my frequent trips would be bike rides to the many parks around the city to sit down to draw, sometimes alone and sometimes with friends. I had allowed myself the simple pleasure of drawing what I saw and playing around with the shape and colour of the thing by laying down texture using lines or just slapping wet blobs of watercolour everywhere.
A scanned section of a sketchbook page. On the top left is a blue ballpoint pen sketch of a large tree branch surrounded by leaves and coloured in brown and green using water colours. On the top right is a series of blue ballpoint sketches of an inch worm. There are words written below the inch worm sketches that read “my little friend.” On the bottom half of the sketchbook section is another blue ballpoint pen sketch of the ground with detritus like fallen leaves, seed pods, dirt, and sprigs of grass. This sketch is also coloured in brown and green watercolours.
A scanned section of a sketchbook page with a collection of blue ballpoint pen sketches of bushes and shrubs that have been coloured in brown, green, blue, and even orange watercolours.
I felt like I returned to the primordial source of art, how it just feels good to make a mark on a physical surface. It feels nice to look at nature, at the physical world, and interact with it in a un-intrusive way by drawing it. Letting myself scribble sketches of bushes, tree branches, and a couple messy sketches of an inchworm that had crawled onto my pencil case made me feel like the metaphorical chains clamped around my wrists had loosened.

It's a weird thing making art for money. Artists deserve to be paid for their work, and please don't take this as me saying that they shouldn't, because I do like being able to afford groceries, but it does feel weird when art becomes a source of income. Creating art is such a natural human thing. Art is communication. It is one of the ways we say to the world "you are here!" and one of the ways we say about ourselves "I am here!" I also think it can also be translated further to "I love the world and I love that I am in it!" It just sucks that capitalism says back to us "sell this love so you can keep living."

And with that proclamation art becomes something that is ranked, that has a hierarchy. What kind of art makes more money over the other determines what kind of art has value. It then becomes harder to enjoy something as simple as drawing because there are now all these new variables to consider like speed, and polish, and detail.
A scanned section of a sketchbook page with a collection of blue ballpoint pen sketches of three moonfish coloured in blue and red watercolours. On the bottom left of the image is a written note that reads, “The Opah or Moonfish. The first discovered warm blooded fish.”
But I guess that conundrum could apply to most forms of labour under capitalism, because even though art can be a pleasure to do it is still a skill and a form of labour. We want to get better at knowing the world and ourselves through art so we practice at it, at least that's what I think. Learning and practice can be a pleasure. Drawing has gotten me to learn things I don't think I would have normally. I've learned about the way some trees grow, the way the human body moves, what makes light reflect off of fish scales the way it does, and I feel full with this new knowledge.

There is also so much to learn about the drawing process itself like the way water flows off of a brush, or how much pressure to put on a ballpoint pen to keep the line light enough to replicate the kind of gradient you can get with a pencil. I've learned about what my own body can do to get across the message I want to send, be it to myself or to the world.

When it comes down to it, no matter how our relationship to art is influenced by social structures, and how well someone draws within those structures, drawing just feels good. The past couple of months helped me remember that.
A scanned sketchbook page of some abstract watercolour paintings of thin branches, leaves, an flowers in brown, orange, and green. In between these paintings are words that read “ Sometimes... It’s nice to paint... Just because... It feels... Good…”
5 Comments
Winter
10/25/2021 20:13:50

I feel like slowly my relationship has started to shift and change with social media and with art/creating/storytelling in general. I'm searching a lot for the reason Why I started doing this in the first place and what I liked about it at all! There's something really amazing about letting yourself make happy accidents and experimenting with art and it's honestly always been my favourite part of an artist seeing their sketchbooks!! Thanks so much for sharing Gisele!! ;;A;; <3

Reply
Gisele link
10/26/2021 09:05:50

Thanks so much for reading, Winter! And I feel you on the whole social media aspect of art sharing. I didn't dive into that in this post because that would have been a whole rant, but the simple fact of it is: art is forever, social media is fleeting.

Making mistakes and finding joy in drawing/art will always have more inherent value than a post doing numbers, and I've been internalizing this more and more.

Reply
Winter
10/26/2021 16:17:20

I feel like its pretty nice in that once you step away from social media the numbers are so easily forgotten too. Its nice to be able to sit back and just look at the stuff you made and find pride in these little marks you made an not needing anyone to have any opinions about them. Sometimes its just nice to create something that just exists at the end instead of justifying its existence in a competitive space online.

Its just a really good feel and I'm glad to see it working for you (because honestly its such a treat getting to see into your sketchbooks at the art you make for yourself <3 )

elemei
11/1/2021 09:16:53

I appreciate the peek into your thoughts and lovely sketchbooking here, the last image especially has such a dear and tender mood. Your topics here are something I've also been mulling over the past few years, especially in regards to how I felt a great sense of relief when I had an art-unrelated day job pre-pandemic. Detaching my art from any expectation of income was wonderful.

The day job, of course, came with its own downsides that I eventually grew frustrated with, and the pandemic then closed it down. I've been anxiety-teetering since with the question of if I should try and make money from my art or if I should hunt for another day job. The latter is more probable, I like being able to draw only what I want to too much, but what I really want to do is neither. This is all to say that I am very much with you in that I feel what I am continually chafing against is the socioeconomic structures we must navigate to live in.

I'm glad you connected anew with your art-making. 🌱

Reply
Gisele Weaver link
11/13/2021 09:41:13

Thank you so much for stopping by Elemei!

I honestly feel you on not wanting to do either. I'm still trying to find my balance, and over the summer I operated under the hope that centring my art on my personal enjoyment would steady me.

Unfortunately I'm not sure that's how things have shaken out, but I also try to remind myself that we are living in unprecedented times. Everything is out of balance, not just us.

Drawing still does feel good, but I'm realizing sharing it is another matter.

I hope everything is alright on your end 🌿

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Hello, my name is Gisele! I'm a cartoonist, editor, and writer living on the cold shoulder of Canada. You can support me and my work through Patreon.

    Archives

    October 2022
    June 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    July 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Chatter
    Fanart
    Health
    Sketches

    RSS Feed

    Newsletter updates currently on pause since the Weebly promotion package costs extra.
Patreon
Ko-Fi
Copyright © 2022
  • Home
  • Comics
  • Illustration
  • Misc
  • Blog
  • Links