Capturing Movement - Animals
Why does fear of the unknown keep us from reaching our potential? Maybe a bit of an existential question to begin a blog about drawing animals, but my experience this week had me thinking about the anxiety that the ‘unknown’ causes, and how these new experiences are never quite as bad as our imposter syndrome would have us believe. In fact, they are essential to the learning process.
Sketching animals.
First set of sketches
This week, my graduate life drawing class shifted gears, focusing on animals rather than people. I’ve drawn animals before; however, a key component of this was gesture sketching. Now, don’t ask me how I made it through my entire art education without actually gesture sketching, but somehow, I’m here. I rarely just sketch for the enjoyment of it. It is usually for a specific purpose, such as starting a larger, refined work. I rarely let myself be loose and messy. So, the thought of embracing these qualities this week had me feeling all kinds of anxious. My imposter syndrome had a microphone in my brain.
As some fellow grad students and I made our way to a log cabin to draw from the animal taxidermies (creepy, I know), I felt an uncertainty in how this experience would go. As I began, it started out rough. My lines reflected how I was feeling: uneasy, hesitant, and frustrated. I was moving very slowly through each sketch, not quite embracing the looseness of gesture sketching.
However, as I got more relaxed and focused, I noticed things starting to improve. My proportional accuracy got so much better without having to erase (like my first few attempts).
A few sketches into this session, I began using a simpler approach to starting each drawing (instead of mapping things out proportionally). I started with a simple circle and ellipse and the general line of movement through the form (and antlers for many of them). This helped increase my speed and accuracy, as well as my line quality.
When I first began these sketches, I felt myself relying on many exploratory lines. As I continued, I noticed my curves getting more graceful and fluid. I almost couldn’t believe how easy it was getting. My sketches felt so much more confident and took about half the time of some of my earlier attempts. I was using line weight variation easily and intuitively to suggest weight and movement.
It's amazing that as artists, we all too often forget what we are capable of! Something about having my lines exposed completely scared me off from gesture sketching, when it was truly such a freeing activity. Watching my pencil strokes become more fluid and accurate as I went was so rewarding.
What this experience is telling me is that whenever you’re feeling fear about a particular area of art, it is time to jump headfirst into trying it. It takes courage to try – most people don’t, which is why there are so few master artists.
The struggle of learning a new skill should be exciting! It is evidence that we are alive and growing. What a privilege! Not all things should come easily. Art is certainly not an instant gratification skill, despite the billions of dollars being poured into making art the result of a simple search into an AI algorithm (built on the labor of artists, ironically enough). Nothing will ever replace the beauty of learning a skill. Whenever I feel frustrated by the learning process, I will remind myself of this.
