Learning to Draw in Quarantine

On the first week of SCA I wrote a SCAB titled ‘An Art Director Who Can’t Draw.’ The Art Director was me. Still is me to an extent. We’ve been at SCA (physically and now virtually) for the last seven months. After that previous SCAB I promised myself I would learn how to draw. On NYE I made a resolution to draw more. But to be honest, with the pressure of getting a banging portfolio crafted I kind of let that slide. If I’m even more honest, I used the pressure of making a portfolio as an excuse on the days where I just felt too nervous to pick up a pencil.

On my 25^th birthday my amazing girlfriend bought me a sketchbook and a set of pencils and graphite. Cut to about a month later and I found myself deep in social distancing, scrolling twitter, the sketchbook still wrapped in the cellophane it came in.

On my twitter feed I came across a tweet basically arguing that if you end up coming out of lockdown not having worked on a skill, or learnt a language, or found a cure for cancer you weren’t busy before coronavirus, just lazy. 

Now, obviously this is a load of shit. People’s circumstances and schedules don’t suddenly free up now everyone’s working from home. Not to mention that that mentality is so toxic for your mental health and if anyone read that tweet too and felt like they weren’t doing enough, trust me, you should be proud for getting through what feels like just one long day. 

However, now comes the hypocritical bit. The problem is that being at SCA has reinforced that part of me that responds to a challenge. The part of me that gets shit feedback or criticism and is motivated by it. So after seeing this tweet I immediately ripped off the plastic covering of the sketchbook and picked up the pencil. And because my girlfriend loves elephants and the gift was from her, I drew this. 

Now, obviously it’s not an amazing drawing. But I did find the process was super therapeutic. I also found that not learning how to draw has been more about a fear of making mistakes than anything else and despair at not being amazing straight away. 

So, given that I am obviously brilliant at sticking to resolutions I make for myself, I am making another one. 

Every Friday Marc sets us reflection slides with a pretty vague brief. I usually use these to learn and practise a new technique on Photoshop or Illustrator and at times Marc has even commended my craft. Twice now I’ve digitally drawn an answer to the brief using a Wacom Tablet. So, my resolution, SMART goal, whatever you want to call it, is that I will submit a hand drawn reflection slide, using paper and pencil and the magic of the scan function on my printer.

Tune in next time to see what I submit. 

P.S. if you managed to get to the end of this SCAB and want to give feedback or tips to help me draw better, please feel free to message me.

Song of the SCAB: Headie One – Gang https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2UKqFvVE3I