Day One: How I draw now...(!)

Its 2019.

I'm now 47 years and 83 days old and I still can't do any of the things I always wanted to be able to do to any decent standard.

I don't know how to play a musical instrument, fly a plane or write any form of program code beyond what i need to know (which isn't much). All things my 16 year old self was certain I'd be able to do by now. That's not to say I haven't learned anything in the intervening years. I like to think I've achieved a lot in that time and that I've done a lot of things I can be rightly proud of, but this blog isn't about comparing the life I've lived with the one I thought I'd have lived. Its more about scratching an itch and seeing if I can - for once in my life approach something proactively instead of my usual seat-of-the-pants style.

I've always had a list of things I needed or wanted to do and, convinced life is too short to stick to one thing in case I miss something, my anxiety has usually taken over and compelled me to do everything at once. I spread everything so thin that i never stick to anything long enough to learn much, which then means I get bogged down and disheartened - which leads to more anxiety and so on.

Time I changed that.

For the last couple of years around October time I've been going down to Kendal for the Lakes International Comic Art festival. Its like a comic con but instead of being tied down to one place like the bigger MCM-type cons it is spread out over the whole town. The punters wander the streets from venue to venue to meet and greet their favourite artists and writers as they give talks and demos and do signings and/or sell their wares.

Its a unique atmosphere as outside of the venues the artists and writers tend to mingle with the punters as well as sign their books, etc. Its strange to find yourself outside hiding under a staircase from the rain and being joined by Ian Rankin, or bumping into Judge Dredd creator John Wagner at an art exhibition that only you and he are attending, or having a drink and a chat with writers like Robbie Morrison. Strange but they all happened to me on the same day within roughly the same hour.

More impressive to me this year was getting to watch artists like Cam Kennedy, Ian Kennedy, Charlie Adlard, Sean Philips and others work which I'd never done before. It was mightily impressive and weirdly inspiring. I have to admit in the face of all of this I was a wee bit star struck. I could barely string a sentence together upon meeting Charlie Adlard and then I went full-retard when I bumped - literally - into Frank Quitely outside the Shakespeare center (he looked kind of scared - sorry Frank/Vincent). But once I'd got back up the road and had calmed down and had time to process the weekend I realised the thing that had inspired me wasn't their talent, or that they were responsible for some of my favourite comics. It was that they loved doing what they did. You weren't inconveniencing them when they offered to draw a picture for you - you'd have been disappointing them if you'd said no.

I want to find something I love to do and I don't want to be disheartened because I'm not instantly good at it. Nobody picks up a plectrum or a pencil or a keyboard and instantly starts playing melodies, drawing the monalisa or writing the greatest works of Shakespeare. Everything takes time and even then the challenge can only ever be yourself versus yourself. The only sound judge of your work today is the you of tomorrow.

Given what had inspired me drawing seemed to be the best choice. So drawing it is.

Starting today and ending on the 31st December this year I will be learning to draw. I already know how to make a mark with a pencil on paper. I know the basic theory of perspective and proportion, of light and and shadow, etc but I'm completely shite at transferring those things onto a page so this year I'm going to set that right. No video games, no fannying about with a guitar, no getting sucked into Twitter all day. Just drawing.

And to make sure I'm doing it I'm going to blog about it. I'm going to bore you shitless with all the stuff I've learned or mastered as the year goes by. I want to take my completely arse-bleedingly shit drawing skills and at least improve them to "somewhat mediocre" by October and then I'll spend the following two months applying what I've learned to something I haven't decided on yet. (Although my grandson Ollie asked me tonight if this meant I was going to do my own comic....hmmm...)

To aid me in my task I have bought certain materials to get me started.

500 sheets of copy paper - because you cant argue with £2.75 at Asda. This will be ideal for scribbling on.

Various sketchpads for when I'm out and about.

Variously pencils both traditional and mechanical - all HB (apart from the red staedler pencils pictured which I'll start using once I get the hang of the HBs) - and the most important tool - the eraser!

As this blog continues and I find I'm needing to add anything to this I'll mention it then. I might also start uploading videos. Id have done that tonight if I'd figured this out in time!

Another thing I've done is bought some books. The Keys to Drawing is quite a famous one and covers everything from hands to landscapes. The two Christopher Hart books were recommended buy a fair few people as good for beginners and the perspective book cost a penny - yes one penny - on Amazon. Its already taught me a lot and I haven't started drawing anything using perspective yet!

So, on to the bit you've been waiting for. The answer to the question "just how crap is he at drawing that he needs to subject us all to this?"

These I drew last week. With all the wrong guidelines. From my head and without erasing. Its my drawing level as of 1 week ago today. Cast your eyes upon them and weep...

Take a minute if you need to stem the flow of blood from your eyeballs and then look at today's effort after having spent the ensuing week preparing for this day by watching artists like Jim Lee work and reading up on techniques (and without drawing - this is a result of having thought about it all week)

First I doodled some trees...

Then I farted around with hands...

Then I showed that a week of reading about perspective has taught me nothing...

And then I drew a face using various techniques I've read up on over the last few days...

If one week does this...mediocre here I come...!!

Here endeth the first blog. I'll be doing this as often as possible when I'm not drawing or I have something to show. Feel free to pop back.